Too Lost to be Saved
by WolfCry17
Summary: [CH. 11 UPDATED] Heero's promise was to always protect Relena, but what will happen when the enemy finds the one way he can't save her? Or can he...? As mysterious events with the possibility of biological warfare occur, the gundam cast is brought togethe
1. An Unexpected Revelation

Too Lost to be Saved  
by: WolfCry17  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing or any of the gundam wing cast. Wish I did, but that is besides the point. Gundam Wing belongs to the original creators and Bandai.  
  
Author's Notes: Hi everybody... I decided to do something different from the usual stuff I write, cause I can never seem to finish anything, well except Emotionly Rinsed in Depression, which is posted on Aishiteru at the moment, but that was a songfic. Anyway, this fic has the main couples: HeeroxRelena, DuoxHilde, TrowaxMiddie, QuatraxDorothy, WufiexSally, and ZechesxNoin. I am sorry to those who are TrowaxCathy fans...I love that couple too, but I prefer Middie Une just because of the conflicting relationship she has with Trowa. Anyway, I hope you like it... I personally am excited about this story and can't stop writing, so I hope you enjoy it too!!!  
  
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Prologue ~ An Unexpected Revelation  
  
A neon screen blared synthetic light in the darkness of the windowless room as vital information scrolled down on the laptop. A tired, young woman scanned article after article of what little evidence she and her partner had found on their present case. However, not a single shred of evidence was to any avail. She fought the urge to rub her blood-shot eyes for some hint of comfort. Suddenly, she found she couldn't avert her eyes from a particular file that seemed to be out of the ordinary. She quickly clicked into the file to unlock its secrets.  
  
The woman's partner silently entered the room with two steaming cups of coffee, one black like he preferred it and the other with cream and two cubes of sugar like she preferred it, for yet another long and restless night ahead of them. He set her cup on the table within her reach, "You know, a strong person drinks his coffee black to keep him awake, unlike your milked-down version."  
  
The woman glarred at her partner for interrupting her train of thought with yet another one of his 'You're Weak If You Do This' speeches. At this time in the morning, she really wasn't in the mood to defend herself for being what he considered weak, especially when after three days without sleep, she was finally getting somewhere in this new case. "'A strong person doesn't take any coffee to fight off tiredness' as you once so delicately put it. Of course, that was until you went several days without sleep or caffeine. Now, all of a sudden, black coffee is allowed for your conveinence. Truthfully, why does the type of coffee one drinks have to characterize whether or not one is strong?"  
  
"Well, I realized that no one can go that long without coffee, and........... INJUSTICE, this is the weakest thing to be arguing over....... have you found anything yet, onna?"  
  
Sally sighed heavily, glad that Wufei surrendered the weak speech, but still enraged at the fact that he never had the strength to say her name. "Yes, before you so rudely interrupted with your 'Black Coffee' speech, but none of this seems to add up. I just found a file full of evidence of weapons of bio-warfare. However, it's nothing, but scientific data on samples that appear to be very weak and not perfected yet," Sally paused for a second to gather and place her thoughts, "Still, I thought that bio-warfare hadn't been used for over two hundred years, since before the colonies even existed."  
  
Wufie stood for a second not saying a word.  
  
Then, when Wufie was ready to speak, the silence was broken as another voice filled their unexpecting ears. "That's because an universal law was passed to forbid the use or access to any presence of bio-weapons from any nation or governmental agency. It was considered a barbaric and unjust way to fight."  
  
Wufie turned slightly, somewhat not surprised in the least by the sudden intrusion of their commander and chief, Lady Une. "Then, how is this possible? The materials and resources to reproduce bio-weapons have been impossible to find since the law was passed. Why now?"  
  
Lady Une's eyes furrowed slightly for the question would not leave her own mind. "I don't have that answer, but I'll get someone else to look into this for the time being. The two of you need some much deserved R&R."  
  
"Sorry Une," Wufie shook his head, "No can do. I won't sleep until this is solved, and I trust no other to handle a case such as this. I want full responsibility for my partner and I on this case." Wufie knew it was a little bold, but he just couldn't trust any other person, preventer or not, with the exception of four former comrades, but none of them were full-time preventers and all were way too far away to get a hold of in time.  
  
Lady Une nodded her acknowledgement, sensing it was futile to argue, as she left the dark room into a blinding hallway. She didn't deny to herself, though, that she was relieved to know the top team in the P.O. (1) was working on this case. But her mind continued to grow weary, and she began to wonder if they were going to need more help. They didn't know who was responsible for this crisis or where this fire was originating. And the worst part about this whole scenario was the only clue they did have was the most disturbing.  
  
*~*  
  
Somewhere in an unknown location...  
  
"Sir, I am recieving readings from the Preventer database system. They have locked into our files and uncovered information on our little bio- weapon experiments. Technically, they have only found the results of our first samples, the unsuccessful tests," a tall man in the shadows of an underground office reported to his superior, whom was a short, bulky man smoking a long pipe of niccatine.  
  
The short, bulky man blew out a ring of smoke from his mouth as he snickered. "Then they know nothing. This information is of no use to me son. I knew they would find something sooner or later." The man coughed up an episode of spats, "However, if it pleases you, you may follow through with our plans if the biologists have perfected my little disease." He took in another strong inhale of the niccatine-flavored pipe. "The timing is just right after all...... Why wait for opportunity to knock on your door when you can grab it by the ears and bring it kicking inside..."  
  
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AN: Hey, guys!!! What did you think? I know it is really slow at the moment, but I promise it will start picking up speed later on. Please bare with me. I hope you like it!  
  
(1): P.O. = Preventer Organization.  
  
Chapter One Preview: Next time, Duo and Hilde go out for a special evening as they try to move on with their lives and later meet up with Trowa and Catherine. Meanwhile, an unidentified person tries to escape from the police. Who is it and why is that person on Trowa's doorstep? 


	2. Unwanted Company

Too Lost Too Be Saved  
by: WolfCry17  
  
Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing. I repeat...I do not own Gundam Wing.  
  
AN: Hey, everybody...this chapter is going to start developing the story, I hope...So please read and enjoy. By the way, I failed to mention this earlier...the gang is around 17 to 18 while Noin and Zeches are 22. (Just in case, anyone wanted to know :p !)  
  
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Chapter 1 ~Unwanted Company  
  
9:00 a.m., October 19, A.C. 197...  
  
The clicking of high-heeled shoes resounded throughout the spacious office area as a young woman of eighteen carried a large file of paperwork as she weaved through the maze of open work stations towards an elevator. She pushed the top floor button and silently rode to the top of the massive E.S.U.N. Headquarters building. She exited into a hallway and strode to a door that led to a two- linked room office. She walked over to her own personal desk and pressed a button on her intercom while balancing the heavy file in the other hand. She waited patiently until her superior's face filled the screen of the empty vidcam.  
  
"Morning Dorothy," Dorothy's superior greeted cheerfully with a huge smile, but that smile soon disappeared. "That's yet another file, isn't it," fear filled the voice of Dorothy's superior.  
  
"Well, it certainly isn't an envelope," sarcasm evident on Dorothy's tongue. Her superior simply glarred out of annoyance and Dorothy's smile broadened. "I am coming in to give it to you. Be right there," Dorothy terminated the connection as she headed to a nearby door that joined their two offices. She juggled the file once again in one arm as the other opened the door. "Morning Miss Relena. Here's the file. I have already organized it per chronicle order," Dorothy explained as she closed the door and walked toward Relena's desk to set the file on the side.  
  
"What would I do without you, Dorothy?" Relena smiled geniunely as she opened the file as if to confirm what Dorothy had promised. When she was satisfied, she focused back on her assisant and continually growing friend. "So, what's the schedule for today?"  
  
Dorothy set herself comfortably on the edge of Relena's desk as she flicked one of her eyebrows. "Hmmm... I believe a short meeting with the Preventors Commander Lady Une at noon; at 3:00, a conference at the E.S.U.N. Parliament building, which is the closing of your seven-day conference on current bills and what not."  
  
"Thank goodness... I was beginning to think this day would never come... I never thought a seven-day migrane could hurt so much."  
  
Dorothy smiled at Relena's attempt of gripping. She knew deep inside, Relena never really minded all the argueing. She was always strong enough to handle it. "And after that meeting, you head home to work on your speech to the public for the final decisions made at the conference, which is scheduled a week from now."  
  
Relena sighed, "Another long day." She spoke with a forceful smile and sarcasm dripped on every word. She was about to dismiss Dorothy when a realization hit her. "By the way, when did this meeting with Lady Une come up. I don't remember scheduling an appointment."  
  
Dorothy hesitated. She was hoping Relena wouldn't ask about that, but knowing her, she knew the question was inevitable. "That's because she scheduled the meeting this morning. She sounded very urgent about it."  
  
"She told you more than that. I know it. What are you trying to hide from me?" Relena eyed Dorothy urging her to spit it out.  
  
Dorothy flicked her eyebrows once more, but her smile seemed fake. She knew Relena didn't want to hear the rest. "You don't give up. Something about a new personal bodyguard she wants to assign to you."  
  
Relena's eyes fell to the papers before her, but she did not see them. She could handle all of the paperwork before her, she could handle old, bickering men, but she could not stand the claustrophobic feeling she always got when she was assigned a personal bodyguard. "Fantastic. Did you try--"  
  
"Yes, I tried convincing Lady Une that you didn't need one, and that I could protect you just as well as any bodyguard. kYou know the preventers, though,"Dorothy explained as she opened the door to leave. "She must have a good reason..."  
  
Dorothy assured as she left Relena to her own thoughts.  
  
*~*  
  
The fifteen-minute father clock stroke twelve with a song of joy in the Chief Preventer's office. Lady Une waited patiently for her appointment to arrive, but at the same time feared that Relena was able to drag the topic of this appointment out of Dorothy. The entrance door to her office sounded with a light knock as Lady Une breathed outwardly to prepare herself. Time to face the music. "Come in, Miss Relena."  
  
The door opened slowly revealing an enraged Relena, though she held her emotion hidden well. Lady Une mentally winced as Relena walked forward. She had heard of the infamous conflicts held between Relena and her brother over this same issue. Not a comforting feeling.  
  
"I demand an answer Lady Une," Relena quickly went straight to the point.  
  
"Well, hello and good morning to you too, Miss Relena... I assume Dorothy has already informed you as to why I called this meeting."  
  
"More or less. All I caught was the assignment of a new bodyguard. Lady Une, you know how I feel about that. Besides, Dorothy is more than sufficient to--"  
  
"I know Relena," Lady Une paused for a breath, "but, I have my reasons and this man is more than qualified himself. He has an excellent record, skills with a gun, a martial arts degree, and is very friendly."  
  
Relena sighed, "And a complete stranger."  
  
"Well, I won't be for long if you would be so kind as to allow me the opportunity, Vice Foriegn Minister Darlian," a unfamiliar, masculine voiced echoed behind Relena.  
  
Relena turned abrubtly at the sound of the young man's voice and found to her eye's appeal, a confident, gorgeous guy sitting in the black leather easy chair at the corner of the room. She hadn't even realized he was there when she first walked in. His eyes focused on her own as if they were trying to captivate her soul. His entire look was sharp as was every move he made. Every move out of curtisy, every word out of respect, and not once did his eyes leave her own. She watched as he stood and strode swiftly towards her. He brought her hand to his mouth to brush his lips against her ivory skin. She watched him carefully as shivers ran down her spine. His light brown hair was greased back with gel to complete his sharpness. His emerald eyes still not leaving her own in an intoxicating stare. "Carl Jackson, miss. It's a pleasure."  
  
Relena suddenly felt uncomfortable the way Carl was eyeing, and she quickly reclaimed her hand from his grasp as if her virginity were in jeopardy. "I suppose I have no choice," she focused back toward Lady Une once more, "How  
  
long?"  
  
"You'll know that answer when I know it," Lady Une sighed. She hated displeasing Relena, and she could tell Relena didn't care for the young man chosen for the job in the least bit, but it was for her own good. "It's late now. I believe you are on conference at three."  
  
"Yes." Relena seemed to accept the situation and turned on her heel to leave like an obedient dog on a leash with her guardian choking the air away. That claustrophobic feeling.  
  
*~*  
  
Somewhere within the colonies, a few days later...  
  
Hard, desperate breathing filled the hostile air of the windless night. Golden, wavy tresses fell into a flowing cascade followed as a rogue stole away into the streets in madness. She had to get away from her present location before her mission was destroyed.  
  
*flashback*  
  
Endless data filled the screen as a old, worn out man downloaded all the information he along with a team of biologists had been working on for the past year. Beads of sweat watered his wrinkled forehead as the downloading prodedure was coming to a close. He had to get this information out of this place before something terrible happened. He wiped his forehead with a piece of cloth as a small silver disk popped out of the laptop. He quickly retrieved it and placed it into a locket that was held on a thin, delicate chain. "You must, you must get this information to the preventers immediately."  
  
A girl of seventeen with blonde tresses and emerald eyes approached the old man hesistantly. "I can't leave you here. What if they find out you downloaded all of the test results. They will kill you."  
  
The old man motioned for the young girl to come closer to him. When she obeyed, he grabbed her shoulders as to further emphasize his urgency. "If you don't go, who knows how many lives will be lost due to this data. You must do this, my daughter. I made a mistake coming here and bringing you into this mess. Please, let this be my way of repenting for my sins."  
  
Suddenly, they heard a thundering sound as officiers on the other side of the door tried to get in. "Who's in there...come out immediatey!"  
  
The old man began to panic as he led his daughter to a ventilation cover. He opened it quickly and pushed her in. "Go now, before it is too late. Get help. You are our only hope.  
  
The girl screamed at her father when he covered the vent back up, "No father. You can't do this. I won't leave you." Tears filled the girl's eyes as her father wouldn't comply with her wishes. "Father!"  
  
*end flashback*  
  
As gunshots rung in her ears, she dashed into a nearby alley full of trash cans, litter, and hanging clotheslines in an attempt to lose her pursuers. She grasped the single locket that hung loosely aroung her neck as she stumbled down the alley, knocking down whatever she could to damage her path.  
  
"There she goes! Down here!" a band of officiers followed the thief down the alleyway avoiding each particle of debris that was purposedly knocked down in an attempt to block their path. However, not one officier was able to get any closer to the girl.  
  
The girl was beginning to lose focus and any sign of hope to allude the officiers in a different direction. Suddenly, an idea struck as she rounded the corner into yet another long, dark alleyway with plenty of clothesline about. Perfect. She hopped onto a nearby trashcan and then preceded to jump to barely grasp the  
  
edge of the closest window ledge, but began to lose her grip. Just as her hanging body was about to fall on her incomers, she gained all of her upper body strength to thrust herself into a high back flip to gently land on a single clothesline. She stood motionless and lifted her arms to steady her balance. She quickly caught her breath as the officiers rounded the corner.  
  
"Search the perimeter. She couldn't have gotten too far," one officier barked. The group scattered to look behind and in anything that could serve as a possible hiding place. The light of flashlights lit the area for any sign of movement, but found none. Suddenly, a piece of clothe, a linen scarf, fell from above. With quick reflexes, all flashlights were aimed above only to find nothing, but clotheslines blowing in a sudden wind. "Dammit. She's gone."  
  
*~*  
  
Earlier that evening...  
  
"Come on, Duo. We'll be late!" yelled an impatient Hilde who was dying to go see a special performance for her birthday celebration. She had spent the entire day shopping for the right dress to wear and delicately managed her time to allow herself two hours to get ready. The only flaw to her ingeniously-arranged schedule was the time needed for Duo to get ready. Hilde sighed heavily once more as she assumed her position on the couch once more and starred at her watch. It just had to be a sin for a guy to take longer than a girl to get ready!  
  
"I still don't see why you insist on going to the circus for your birthday? I thought that's what three-year olds did?" a mumbling Duo said as he messed with the tie of his tuxedo as he walked down the stairs. He didn't much mind going to the circus. He could see a long time comrade and friend there. But the tux... the tuxedo was really pushing it. "I feel like a waddling penguin. How does Quatra wear these things?"  
  
Hilde smiled at the sight before her. Duo dressed in a cobalt blue tuxedo as dark as the midnight sky, though a bit messy with each hand messing with one end of his tie. She approached trying to control her laughter, "Have you ever put on formal attire, before? Here... let me." She gestured toward the tie and worked her hands swiftly with the thin piece of fabric, "There, now come on!"  
  
Within half an hour, the two found the perfect seats to oversee the entire circus performance. Elephants, lions, lion tamers, acrobats, jugglers, dagger throwers and all. It was so overwhelming, it even helped Duo forget about his present discomfort with a particular cobalt blue tux.  
  
Then the performance that both Hilde an dUo had been waiting for, the amazing knife-thrower, Catherine Bloom, and her acrobat assistant, Trowa Barton. Duo hollered and whistled over the crowd in brotherly support. Just as he found his seat again, he heard Hilde drooling over a certain clown-budy of his, "Man, even to this day, I can fall for a clown like that."  
  
Duo sweatdropped as her words flowed from her soft lips. Not again! He then realized the reason to his opposition of coming here. "You know, you are drooling over a close buddy to the guy who rescued you from the Mercurios and Vayate!"  
  
Hilde finally averted her eyes from Trowa toward her close and best friend. She smiled brightly as she realized Duo's jealousy over his old comrade from the eve wars, whom help no competition over Duo. She would always only have eyes for Duo, though despite her out-going nature, could never openly admit her affection to the boy who stole her heart. At least yet, anyway.  
  
The two seemed to enjoy the rest of the show enthusiatically and were content with each other's company. However, once the show was over, Duo never seemed so happy to stretch his legs in his life as he ran down the steps past the exiting audience to catch up with Trowa. Hilde slowly made her way down after him, trying to squeeze through the crowd of restless men and children. She could even hear some grumbling over how many times somebody was trying to get past them and going the wrong way to exit the tent. She finally managed to catch up with Duo just to find him already deep in conversation with Trowa.  
  
*~*  
  
A cold gust of wind blew open an ajar window in the R.V. trailer, chilling the dagger-thrower to the bone. She sighed as droplets of rain brushed against her skin as she attempted to close the window. She rubbed her hands together in a sense of achievement and went back to her previous chore.  
  
The steaming pot of her famous, or rather infamous, soup set off a strong aroma that warmed the entire kitchen. Green orbs softened as she heard laughter in the room next to the kitchen. She smiled as she filled four bowls of soup and exited the kitchen into the tiny livingroom. "The soup is ready. I know its not the best, but it serves as something fast to make."  
  
"Oh, don't worry about that Catherine, Duo will eat anything you place infront of him. By the way, we have never formally met. My name is Hilde Schebieker."  
  
Catherine couldn't control her laughter as she passed the last bowl to her newfound friend. "I know all too well who you are, Hilde Schebieker. Trowa explained to me how you helped save the Earth's Sphere by stealing information on the space fortress, Libra."  
  
Hilde's eyes furrowed slightly as she tilted her head in rememberance of that day. "Yeah, well, it was stupid. However, it was the only thing I could think of to do to help Duo." Hilde tasted the tangy soup before her and tried hard to shallow it out of respect, but her mouth didn't seem to register the comment. When she finally succeeded in doing so, she slowly set the spoon down.  
  
Cathy once again found herself laughing uncontrollably as she watched Hilde try to stomach the unpalatable soup. "Hey, don't worry! You don't have to eat it. It may tastebad, but it is good for you!"  
  
"Are you sure?" Hilde questioned as she played with the soup in examination. She suddenly looked at Duo who was gulfing it down and smiling brightly when Trowa offered him his share. "How does he do it?"  
  
"You should know," Trowa sat in the easy chair next to the girls and laid back to rest his muscles, "You live with him!"  
  
Hilde gave a hard glare in Trowa's direction, but her expression softened into relief as Duo came over and finished her bowl off as well. At least he's good for something! "Hey, hey Duo... that was mine!"  
  
Duo smiled with a goofy look full of soup sauce smudged everywhere. "All well, you snooze, you lose!"  
  
Hilde was about to slap the hell out of him when a loud thud stopped her. All four occupants focused their attentionat the door, which had slammed open. A single, dark figure in a cloak stood motionless in the heavy rain as lightning flashed across the sky.  
  
Trowa stood glaring at the intruder as Cathy and Hilde gasped in fright and Duo wiped his face off. "Who are you?" Trowa's hand lay alertly at his side where his gun was hidden. He motioned over to Duo. Duo seemed to understand as he positioned himself in front of the girls with his own gun handy.  
  
The figure slipped into the shelter the trailer provided from the pouring rain. "You haven't changed much," the figure took the hood off to reveal feminine features of golden hair and desperate pools of emerald green. "No-name, or should I say Trowa Barton."  
  
Trowa's features changed for a spilt second in a state of shock and surprise before they hardened once more into a deadly glare at the girl before him. "Hello, Middie Une."  
  
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AN: Hey guys, sorry it was so long, but I really wanted to end this chapter here, and not sooner. I hope you guys liked it!  
  
Chapter Two Preview: Next time, Trowa finds out what Middie has come for and the truth to a difficult past. Will Trowa forgive all that Middie has done and help her, or throw her back onto the street? 


	3. The Truth to the Past

Too Lost to be Saved  
by:WolfCry17  
  
Disclaimer: I do not own gundam wing, or the section of the Gundam Wing, Manga of Episode Zero scenes I borrowed. The scene isn't copied word for word from the manga, but the scene still belongs to the original creators of the Manga Episode Zero.  
  
AN: Please Read and Review!!! And of course, enjoy!!!  
  
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Chapter Two ~ The Truth to the Past  
  
10:00 p.m., October 21, A.C. 197, Colony L2-C8923...  
  
"Hello No-name."  
  
"Middie Une."  
  
The young blonde fought the strong desire to flinch as she heard the venom that filled her name as Trowa spoke. His intense green eyes held her own emerald ones in a glare of pure hatred. Middie remained silent, clutching onto her only precious possession, the silver locket, that held her whole world and mission, in response. She knew all too well that she deserved much worse than the death vibes Trowa was sending in her direction.  
  
Duo, Hilde, and Catherine glanced toward one another in complete discomfort. "Trowa, who is she?" Catherine's eyes shined with worry and curiousity as to whom this strange woman who interged her younger brother so much was. Her answer was never answered, however. Before she knew what was happening, Duo dragged both her and Hilde into the nearest room, which happened to fortunately be the kitchen.  
  
Trowa never witnessed his friends' exit and barely acknowledged their absense, for his full attention was concentrated on the young girl, or rather woman before him. She was, after all, no longer that little girl that would risk anything for her family's well-being anymore. No, now she was a taller, more mature girl with curves in all the right places that perfected her figure. It made Trowa's heart skip a beat. Her wavy tresses shined golden and her emerald eyes sparkled with the same passionate fire he once knew. A long ago, childhood lust came over him before he gained his composure once more. "What are you doing here? I thought you were dead." Anger evident in his green orbs.  
  
"I still am," grief-stricken, she continued, "I came for your help." She observed Trowa's every move in a search of hope. What she found was an older version of the only childhood friend she ever had, the one person she was forced to betray.  
  
Trowa's eyes softened at Middie's sudden plea of help, but he would not follow that familiar road of friendship that ended in nothing, but a torn heart that was already broken. "You're nothing, but a spy and a trader."  
  
*~*  
  
Fixated eyes of prussian blue orbs were set on the laptop screen positioned in front of them as rough hands flew like lightning across the keyboard. The young boy paused for a minute, brushing his touseled, chocolate brown hair with his right hand. He had to perfect this new program design tonight to meet his deadline. Designing software programs, security systems, developing state-of-the-art decoders, etc. It wasn't the best job in the world, but it was something the former gundam pilot was useful for.  
  
Heero Yuy finished adjusting some configurations on his present project within the following ten minutes. He was about to close up for the night until he suddenly saw a flashing light in the lower left-hand corner of the screen. Heero's eyes hardened in curiousity as he clicked into the flickering light. He could tell it was a message of some form, but it was different from any system he ever encountered. The light filled his screen while lighting the entire room in a reddish glow at the same time before it revealed the face of the former Shenlong pilot. "Wufie Chang." His ears instantly became alert when he realized the system was the preventers' new, secured communication link.  
  
Wufie smirked to see the one man who could make the impossible, possible, then his features grew serious. "I need your help."  
  
*~*  
  
Duo crouched next to the only door that led to the living-room where two others seemed to be bickering. He lifted a glass cup to his right ear and onto the door to enhance their voices so Duo could make out the words. "Damn. I can't hear a bloody thing! I thought trailer walls were supposed to be thin! What are these walls made out of anyway, titanium alloy?"  
  
Hilde and Catherine were both seated at the small, round kitchen table glancing from Duo to each other and then back towards Duo again. Hilde rested her head on her left hand with her elbow on the table in an unladylike manner, and full of exasperation. "Let me get this straight Duo. You shoved us out of the room to give them some privacy just to hover over the door in hopes to eavesdrop in on their conversation!?!"  
  
Duo huffed in defeat at listening through the door and moved to the keyhole in hopes to see on the other side. Hilde sweatdropped as she started to knock her head onto the table several times in further frustration. Catherine just sat dumbfounded about the whole situation with Trowa and this mysterious girl. She sat speechless while watching both of her guests, one hovering over her door trying to chip a hole into it while the other was knocking herself senselessly into the table.  
  
*~*  
  
Tears threatened to engulf Middie's eyes as she focused on the floor before her. She was trying to recompose herself. A spy. A trader. She deserved worse accusations than the words Trowa chose. She had taken advantage of his trust and in so doing, lost it, maybe forever. However, her betrayal was in the past and there was nothing she could do to change that fact now. Besides, she had more important things to worry about. "Trowa, I..." she choked back a few sobs, "I can't change the past. I am guilty of what you accuse me of, but what am I supposed to do about that now?" She boldly took a few more steps toward Trowa who remained motionless.  
  
At that moment, their eyes locked onto one another's and both found they couldn't pull away. Trowa seemed to study her. After what felt like an eternity, Trowa finally broke the silence. "There's nothing you can do. You did what you had to do." Sarcasm smothered every word. He turned to walk off, but her hand had clasped his wrist in persistence and the soft feel of her silky hand made him shudder.  
  
"Of course I did what I had to do. What choice did I have?" Middie set her jaw in determination as she waited for Trowa's response.  
  
Trowa's anger finally spilled over at her last statement. Every emotion he had locked up for years poured out into his next words. He turned to look her dead on. "You could have said no. Those Alliance soldiers had no more a hold on you than they did on me." He felt her hand release and jerk away from his wrist as she stepped away from him. He watched confusion fill her eyes and the gentle shaking of her head.  
  
Middie couldn't believe how heartless those words came out. For the first time, she saw Trowa show a sense of emotion, but it was purely heartless. Her own heart felt as if someone was strangling her to her last breath. She felt her knees weaken as she tumbled to the floor in a heap, her tears pouring. She couldn't stop them now, but she still refused to let Trowa see. "They did... they did have a hold on me... I had no choice." She finally looked back up toward Trowa and saw his eyes soften. Her own were now in a burning glare. "Trowa, if I didn't go through what I did, my family would have died. I know what I did was wrong, but I knew the grief and regret I would've experienced if my parents died when I could've done something about it would be ten times worse than the guilt I experienced working for the enemy. I sacrificed my pride, my beliefs, and your trust to save them. I have nothing left, but the choice to make things right again, a second chance. That is all I am asking of you."  
  
Trowa's head felt as if it were spinning when realization came back to him. He had forgotten her reasons for her actions, but now the past was as clear as day. She didn't betray him just for her own benefits. She did care. That was if she was telling the truth, but how could he know for sure. How did he know she was pulling something over him to get something out of him. "How do I know you're telling the truth? How can I trust you after what you did?"  
  
Middie's heart sank once more with his hurtful words, his interrogation. "What reason do I have to lie?" she cried out.  
  
"I don't know. You tell me." Trowa watched Middie look into his eyes once more. He could see fear, doubt, and disappointment fill her emerald orbs. She looked lost and alone, much like he felt the day he met her.  
  
*flashback*  
  
A.C. 190, somewhere on Earth...  
  
"No Name here. I've been hit and can't maneuver... I'm withdrawing."  
  
"Roger. Well done!"  
  
A small boy of no more than ten nodded his head in command before terminating the communication link. His dark green eyes focused ever constantly on his present task as he shut down his Leo mobile suit. He climbed swiftly out of the cockpit with a gun handy in his right hand. He was in enemy territory now and had to be very cautious with every move he made. Suddenly, his ears perked to the sound of leaves rustling behind him and he cocked his gun in response. "Show yourself!" He saw a single girl around his age come out from behind the bushes' facade and stepped hesitantly into the moonlight. Her wavy tresses shined with a golden aura under the stars and her emerald eyes drew him into her young radiance. "What are you doing here?"  
  
The girl stood motionless as she gazed upon her onlooker in a trance. This was the boy she was supposed to befriend?! She looked upon his chestnut hair that covered one of his eyes. He had a mysterious presence, and it intrigued her. "My name is Middie... Middie Une."  
  
*~*  
  
the present...  
  
Emerald eyes of a kindred spirit focused half-heartedly on a large stack of paperwork through wispy bangs of blonde. Only the sounds of an overhead fan and a single sigh could be heard in the spacious office. Quatre Raberba Winner closed his eyes as he set his pen down to enjoy the pure bliss of seeing only the inside of his eyelids. Who knew controlling the majority of the colonies' resource satellites would require so much work.  
  
Quatre chuckled slightly amused at the fact that he was beginning to think too much like Relena. Relena. That was one good thought. Once all this paperwork was signed and carefully looked over, he would be traveling once again to the earth to see a very good friend. He would also be seeing the one and only Dorothy Catalonia, the kindest person he knew. Maybe he was nuts, but he truely believed that deep inside that war-torn lover was a very kind and gentle woman, despite the fact that she had stabbed him during the eve wars, ultimately almost bringing his life to an end. It helped reawaken her true self. He had forgiven her the instant it happened and wanted to assure her safety before his own. Quatre hadn't realized yet what a great deal she meant to him, but deep down, he knew that despite her up-bringing and opininated mind, he could fall for no other.  
  
Quatre shook his head slightly, letting his bangs softly brush against his forehead, to regain focus once more. He glanced over to his schedule book and smiled. At the end of the week, he would be surrounded by friends again while attending a public announcement both he and Relena arranged. She dealt with the Earth's side while he represented the Colonies' side.  
  
He looked out the ceiling-to-floor size window onto the bustling colony below. Peace is so wonderful, Dorothy. Do you know what a beatiful sight peace creates?  
  
Quatre closed his eyes in content as if waiting for something to occur, something he was expecting to occur. As if on cue, his office door opened, and the small smile that had previously crept onto his face grew larger. His eyes remained closed. "You're supposed to knock."  
  
Prussian blue orbs starred blankly towards the young blonde man who faced his window to the outside world. "You're heading toward the earth for that public speech. I need a ride." Heero leaned against the wall with his arms crossed in a sense of demand.  
  
"No, you haven't," Quatre finally turned to face his guest. "If you wanted to go to the earth, you would've found a way, no problem. So why don't you tell me the real reason you're here."  
  
"I need your help."  
  
*~*  
  
Continue flashback...  
  
A group of restless mercernaries sat silently around a small, flickering fire as they ate the only meal they had had that day. One man grew sick of the silent tension and decided to break the silence. "Captain, why don't we ditch the rebels and join the alliance?"  
  
Another man seemed to agree as he put in his own comment. "Fighting a losing battle is just too draining... I hear the alliance pays pretty well."  
  
"Idiots," the captain couldn't believe the rubbish he was hearing. "The rebel army is what keeps the fight going. If they lose us to the alliance too, this war will be over!"  
  
Meanwhile...  
  
A young blonde girl was messing with a small object that resembled a gameboy around her neck while she watched the boy called no-name. He was working on his mobile Leo suit, which had been severly damaged during the last fight. The two of them had hardly said a word to each other. "I hear we need some kitchen help," her eyes furrowed when he didn't answer. "Why did you save me?"  
  
"Because we are the same."  
  
Middie's eyes widened at no-name's answer. "Huh?"  
  
"You're me."  
  
Middie rolled her eyes. As if that helped! "What do you mean?"  
  
No-name didn't answer Middie, but simply thought about his past. He really didn't have one. He was found by a group of mercernaries all alone when he was only a year old or so. They had decided to take him in, and teach him how to fight for their cause. He had been fighting ever since. He was suddenly pulled out of his thoughts when a silver cross on a thin, delicate chain dangled in front of him. "What's this?"  
  
"To thank you for your help. Now God will watch over you. But, you should know, I don't like you."  
  
Later, no-name was engaged in yet another fight against the alliance. All of a sudden, he heard his captain's voice over the intercomm.  
  
"This ambush will be perfect. I can just picture those alliance guys' panicked faces."  
  
"Yeah," no-name remained focused. However, things didn't go as planned. The alliance mobile suits began to fight back as if they had already known of the ambush. But how?  
  
"What? They knew we were coming!? That's ...that's impossible."  
  
"Captain, let's pull back."  
  
"You pull out. I'll hold them out here."  
  
"But--"  
  
"Do as I say, no-name."  
  
"Roger."  
  
However, one of the mercernaries decided to turn on the captain. "Sorry Captain. We have our livelihoods to think of." The group of traders joined the alliance's side as the captain, no-name, and a few loyal comrades kept fighting until they were forced to retreat.  
  
Afterward, no-name found Middie helping with the kitchen staff to feed the soldiers. She looked at him with saddened eyes. "No-name, can't you look a little sad? You killed your comrades."  
  
"I used up enough sad faces as a baby to last a lifetime." No-name glanced at the gameboy-like object around Middie's neck for the first time. So that's it.  
  
"So you'll just keep shutting down your heart, huh? How long are you going to wear the tearless mask?" Middie tried to hand him a plate of steaming-hot food that resembled something similar to mush.  
  
No-name turned around, ignoring the food. "Until the day I die." Just then, no-name heard the sound of large mobile suit carriers flying over above, a loud explosion, and Middie's scream. No-name's eyes widened. He quickly found a motorcycle, started the engine, and manuvered back towards Middie to save her. "Middie, grab on!"  
  
Middie slowly stood up, bruised and banged up from being thrown to the ground by the impact of nearby explosions. She obeyed no-name's demand and grasped hold of his hand to climb onto the bike in the passenger's seat behind him. She held tightly onto his waist in an effort to stay on. "I'm not going to thank you."  
  
"Don't worry. I wasn't expecting it."  
  
"I'm not worth anything alive."  
  
"Me neither," No-name directed the bike through their destroyed campsite headquaters until he found the captain lying still amongst the rubble on the ground. No name slowed the bike down to a halt and helped Middie off. He walked over to the captain to feel his pulse. Dead. "How much did they pay you Middie?" He had known for a while that she was nothing, but a spy.  
  
Middie simply looked at no-name, not surprised that he was able to figure it out. "Enough to feed three brothers and a sick father."  
  
No-name's eyes softened in a sense of pity for the girl. She had a huge toil to carry on her back, and he couldn't blame her for her actions. At the same time, he couldn't forgive her for the feeling of betrayal she had just laid upon his already-broken soul. He threw the cross Middie had given him back to her. "That cross and gameboy around your neck were both transmitters?" When she nodded, he pulled his gun and aimed it at her.  
  
Middie looked at no-name's angry expression, and it shocked her to see an emotion from him. "So, even you get mad sometimes...You said before that I was you, but that wasn't true. I'm not as fortunate as you."  
  
No-name seemed shocked, "I'm fortunate."  
  
Middie took her transmitter in haste and threw it to the ground next to the cross. I love... "There's nothing that ties you down. You have no name, no past, and now no comrades." Tears spilled over Middie's eyes. I love you. "I have a name, Middie Une. I have a sick father and three little brothers. I couldn't have survived this long without becoming a spy and getting all these people killed." I longed to be like you. Middie suddenly burst into a fit of sobbs as she continued with her guilt speech. " I can't even tell the person I love how I feel about him. Do you know why!? Because I am not empty like you! I'm filled with things... my family, my job, my guilt." Always, I wanted to be with you always. "That's why... that's why I hate empty guys like you!" I loved you.  
  
No-name felt her pain, her suffering, and her entrapment. He wanted so much to help her, but his mind wouldn't let him. His mask wouldn't break and warm up to the girl he cared so desperately for. "That all you have to say? You're better off than me... you have a place to go home to. Goodbye Middie." No-name turned to walk away after dropping his gun to the ground, to walk away from Middie...forever.  
  
-end flashback  
  
*~*  
  
Trowa's eyes seemed to flash an array of emotions as the memory of their war-torn past was once again revealed to him. There were so many things that Middie had done and said that he didn't necessarily agree with. At the same time, he realized he would have done the same thing for his beloved sister, Catherine. He realized the mistake he had made that day so long ago. He walked away... he walked away without another word when she needed him the most. At that moment, every fiber of hatred he held for her died and all that was left was pure love and longing to help her, the girl who stole his dreams. "What can I do to help?"  
  
Middie's eyes widened as she looked up to him from her seated position on the floor. Shock. Pure shock. Had he finally forgiven her wrong- doings of the past after all these years? She watched as he held out his hand and a fresh drop of water slid down her cheek as she gladly accepted.  
  
She let him pull her to her feet until they were so close, she could feel his warmth and her smile became never-fading. "But you do realize, I am not going to thank you."  
  
Trowa merely smirked as he brushed away her final tear. "Don't worry. I wasn't expecting it."  
  
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AN: Well, there's chapter two!! *sniff* *sniff* Go Trowa!! He forgave Middie! I just love their relationship! If Heero and Relena didn't exist, they would be my fav. couple. However, HYxRP remains at the top of my list. Again, I do apologize for those of you who are Pro TBxCB! I truely love that pairing too, but I find Trowa and Middie more intriguing. Their relationship is so complex and painful. Their relationship serves my interest more than Trowa X Catherine. Sumimasen (sorry).  
  
I will be focusing on Quatre and Dorothy some more along with Zeches and Noin! (Sorry again for those of you who do not care for Dorothy. But, I have respect for her in a weird sort of way. Did I just say that??? I used to hate her with every inch of my soul, but recently a friend bought the DVD box collection and I saw the entire series over again. Somehow, I started to understand her along with Trieze. How one understands him is beyond me, but it can be done. *smiles* Anyway, now I love her relationship with Quatre, cause like Trowa and Middie, they have a tense relationship and it is fun to work with!!!) Development between Duo and Hilde and Wufie and Sally will be later on during the fic. And of course, Heero and Relena will slowly develop throughout the entire fic getting more tense near the end.  
  
Please keep sending reviews, flames or not. I am completely open to any opinions, so I invite both encouragement and flames!!! And if any of you would like to convince me of why certain couples shouldn't be together, I would love to hear your opinions, especially concerning Trowa. My email is wolfcry@gvtc.com.  
  
Wufie: Are you finished yet, onna... they might actually want to read the next chapter or probably get out of here!!  
  
Author: Oops...sorry, guys, I ramble forever. Sumimasen!  
  
Wufie: That's all you onnas ever do, ramble, ramble, talk, talk...blah, blah, blah...  
  
Author: (sweatdrops.) Look who's talking!! How does Sally deal with this?!? (rubbs forehead) Bye guys!!! 


	4. Rumors Within ESUN

Too Lost to be Saved  
by: WolfCry17  
  
Disclaimer: I continue to state and declare that I do not own Gundam Wing. The series belongs to Bandai and its original creators.  
  
AN: Hey guys... I hope you have liked the fic thus far. I want to apologize for not giving a Chapter Preview in the last chapter. I know some people like to have a Chapter Preview after every chapter for the upcoming one... so I try to stay consistent and give one, however sometimes I don't even know the full plan of the next chapter, therefore a preview is sometimes impossible to conjure up in time. Again, Sumimasen.  
  
Also, please stay with me, I know these first few chapters are very slow, but I promise there will be some action in the next two chapters or so. -K- .  
  
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Chapter 3 ~ Rumors within ESUN  
  
Fingertips tapped rapidly on the smooth, mahoghany surface as concerned, irritated eyes focused on the busy streets below through a large window. How ignorant and niave the world was of the problems raising within the ESUN. How foolish and dependent the people were to place all burdens on a single seventeen year-old girl. 'Foolish, indeed.'  
  
Long strands of a blonde cascade fanned out as Dorothy Catalonia abruptly turned from the world outside. She sensed tension was rising for there was no other reason the top representatives of the ESUN would call an emergency conference after their seven-day-trial. Something didn't smell right and Dorothy wondered how Relena would play this one out. She began to conjure up all the reasons that could possibly cause such a sudden curve of suspicions amongst the ESUN officials.  
  
No matter the consequences, another war could not start. This time, was had to be avoided not only for Dorothy's sake, but the whole of the Earth's Sphere. War would jeopardize the reconstruction of the already heavily-crippled cities, countries, and colonies.  
  
Dorothy stopped all of a sudden in her tracks and nearly bursted into a fit of giggles at her own foolishness. She was making too big a deal on a single emergency conference call. She didn't even know the cause of this meeting, much less if it had anything to do with leading to another war or not. Maybe she was just worrying about what another war would do to her. She hated and loved war, but she so desperately needed peace as well. It was the only way to cure herself from her obsession with war. She was having a horrible time fighting against her war-loving side, her heartless side, and she didn't want to be like that anymore. Not since him. 'Damn you, Quatre.' He had made a huge impact on who Dorothy wanted to be, and she loathed him for making her go through this struggle to become the kind person she once was. Dorothy sighed heavily as she continued to wait patiently for the conference to end. Still, her stomach seemed to knot up with apprehension.  
  
*~*  
  
"...and that is very true Vice Foreign Minister Darlian, but the cause to this sudden meeting is not do on our worries for the decisions made during the seven-day-trial." The young Representative Mason of the North American Continent voiced.  
  
Relena merely listened for an explanation. She had rattled her mind, just as Dorothy did, to figure out the reasons behind this meeting. The only convincible explanation she had concluded was unrest among the politicians from the seven-day-trial. Important decisions were made within a short period of time, and yet, it left a considerable time afterwards to start doubting if what was decided was indeed the correct path. However, it startled Relena when it appeared that it wasn't the case, but she remained cool on the outside while her eager mind was about to explode into a million fragments upon the anticipation.  
  
Many heads were downcast in worry while others were sweating on the edge of their seats. They all knew something Relena didn't, and it burned her to realize something was being passed behind her back. "Might I question as to why this meeting was actually assembled."  
  
The elder Representative Bentkowski of Russia answered Relena's questioning gaze. "Of course, Foreign Minister Darlian. Have you heard of Doctor Samual Ruani-Saal of South America, Brazil?" Representative Bentkowski hesitated to meet Relena's unwavering gaze. "He is a specialist in the study of pathogenology. He has spent the whole of his lifetime studying virus and disease causing agents in South America in the search for a universal cure to cancer. Dozens of new viruses and pathogens have been discovered due to his efforts, which granted him the Nobel Prize. These new discoveries have brought the human race a world of knowledge from the deadliest agent to even the cure of several forms of cancer."  
  
"This is all very fascinating, Representative Bentkowski. However, do you mind stating a point with this science lesson, or is it safe for me to assume that you do nothave one." Relena had heard of the famous biologist since she was five. One had to be both deaf and blind not to have heard of him.  
  
Bentkowski merely ignored Relena's criticism as he steadied his gaze level with her own. "Vice Foreign Minister Darlian, you are quite aware that Doctor Ruani-Saal was reported missing without a trace two years ago or is it safe for me to assume that you are oblivious of worldwide news."  
  
Relena cringed inside, mentally slapping herself. She had set herself up for that one. Bentkowski one, Relena nothing. However, she still didn't know where exactly this was heading. She shifted her weight slightly in an attempt to compose herself. "I can assure you I am quite aware of his disappearance, but I must be oblivious to something. I am having a problem figuring out where you are heading with this." She knew her words were harsh and niave and sounded so to the older, more experienced politicians. However, if she learned anything during her previous years, she had to be strong to keep a sense of order amongst the representatives.  
  
"Of course, Minister Darlian, forgive me." Bentkowski brought out a large, vanilla folder and passed it down towards Relena. "As you can see, there are several reports concerning Ruani-Saal and many other doctors in similar fields. For example, page eleven, Doctor Thomas Une who disappeared January of A.C. 197. He served the former Earth Sphere Alliance against his own will up until the Alliance surrendered to the former OZ during Operation Daybreak. After he escaped from the clutches of the alliance with his one daughter, Middie Une, and two of his three sons, the third presumed dead, he continued his previous work in the field of genetics. His specialty to be exact was the genetic make up of the human race."  
  
Relena looked through the endless pages throughout the file of reports of eleven missing biologists, surgical doctors, etc. She sat patiently waiting for an explanationas to why this should concern politicians instead of the police. Although, she had to admit, she was beginning to feel the same apprehension the rest in the room were feeling. There seemed to be an unsettling pattern forming.  
  
Bentkowski studied Relena as he let the information sink in. When he felt Relena was beginning to understand a significance, he continued. "Unfortunately, that isn't the end of it. "Bentkowski opened his suitcase once more to pull out a different folder, a brown one. As with the previous folder, he passed this one towards Relena as well. "I know you are wondering why these disappearances have anything to do with the relations between world nations and colonial governments. This folder will explain our reasons of concern."  
  
As Relena quickly glanced over the contents of the brown folder, her eyes widened slightly as she heard the voice of another representative, this one from West Asia.  
  
Representative Shan Yu sighed to gain the strength to speak. "As you can see, the problem lies with the significance of each individual's profession. But before I get to that, I must state the fact that before each man disappears, shipments of all sorts disappear spontaneuously. Records and research data, gallons of pathogens and disease-causing agent samples, shipments of possible genetic-altering agents, toxins and gases. Several shipments of these contents have been intercepted and stolen for the past several years, and it has become more frequent these past few months. So far, there is no plausible explanation, and the preventers don't seem to be looking into these cases."  
  
Relena looked up from the files after a long silence amongst the representatives. The pattern was becoming more disturbing. She examined each date and realized that it all corresponded just as Representative Shan Yu had previously explained. Before each doctor's disappearance, much of their reserch data and shipments sent to agencies disappeared. Then, after a considerable time, the doctor or scientist disappeared altogether. It was like a conspiracy. "I believe I may understand what the concern is; however, if you would continue please."  
  
Representative Shan Yu nodded, "There have been rumors spreading rapidly throughout many countries' secret intelligence agencies that have been most unsettling. With the evidence we have just presented, these agencies have come to the same conclusion we have. Some organization has been devising sophisticated plans to disrupt the peace through the Earth Sphere by medical means."  
  
Relena sighed inwardly when all of her suspicions were confirmed. "Are you suggesting that a rebel organization that has not yet been identified is deliberately trying to cause a war with biological and chemical weaponry? That is an over-exaggerated assumption, gentlemen. Biological and chemical warfare has been legally banned for well over two- hundred years."  
  
"Just because particular actions are illegal, does not mean they aren't still practiced, Minister Darlian!" Representative Bentkowski interjected with frustration and haste. Bentkowski quickly calmed himself down from his sudden outburst. "Excuse me, Minister Darlian, but we do have reason to believe--"  
  
"With all due respect Representative Bentkowski, but what you are proposing lacks sufficient evidence necessary to take any form of political action. There is no reason to draw such exaggerated assumptions due to a few coincidental disappearances. Yes, I do agree, the situation does require to be looked into and fully researched. I will address the Preventers Commander on the matter at once. Now, if you will all excuse me-- "  
  
"Vice Foriegn Minister Darlian," Representative Bentkowski stood abrubtly from his chair in an alarming manner. "Nations around the world are growing restless of the situation. Several countries are ready to start blaming whomever they can, and if we don't take appropriate measures immediately to disengage--"  
  
"Believe me, gentlemen, I do understand your need for concern. However, acting on blind reasoning with no accurate leads will only end in disaster and corruption. This is a concern for the Preventer organization, and until it has been proven a political concern, we must remain patient. If this does conclude into a problem, then we will organize the leaders of the Earth Sphere and present this matter to Parliament."  
  
An elder man, the president of the Earth Sphere Unified Nation, took the opportunity to speak, "I will have to agree with the Vice Foreign Minister on the matter, gentlemen. The Preventers Organization is recieving sufficient funds through the people's tax incomes to deal with these sorts of situations. However, Minister Darlian, you will take control of a full investigation on this case along with your choice of preventer agents. You are after all, the Ambassador of Foriegn Affairs. Is everyone agreed?" Every delegate raised their hand in affirmation.  
  
Relena nodded as she rose once more from her seated position. "If you gentlemen will excuse me then."  
  
*~*  
  
A single, obscure figure smiled mischievuously as a finger terminated the video-link to the conference call in one swift motion. A gentle tapping of a pen filled the darkened room. "Impressive. The top representatives of ESUN have discovered our plans with our little biological weapon. And the Vice Foriegn Minister Darlian has been placed in charge for the case. How ironic. How hilariously ironic!" Uncontrolable laughter filled the room in a roar.  
  
*~*  
  
Dorothy's eyes brightened as she saw the heavy, sound-proof door of the conference room open after several hours. She had really gotten fed up with staying in the same room with the solemn Carl Jackson, who seemed a bit too cocky of his skills for her own taste. 'How could Lady Une have possibly seen anything in this man? He has no intense, alluring fire that motivates him. He is so sure of himself through reputation that I bet he'd be the first to cower down when real trouble aroused.'  
  
Dorothy gave Carl a disgusted look as she passed him to take her side by Relena. "How did the meeting go?"  
  
An exhausted, but determined Relena glanced toward Dorothy. She gave a weary smile, but said nothing due to Carl's lingering presence behind their every step. Relena left Dorothy pondering with no answers until they reached the confinement of the limo sitting outside the ESUN building. Unbeknown to them, Carl was glaring down at Dorothy's back as he followed the pair.  
  
Relena relaxed as she rolled up the sound-proof window and its shades between the passenger side of the limo and the driver's side where Carlwas. "Oooh... I want to kill Lady Une. Carl is more relentless in staying around me than my previous bodyguards. He has such a gloomy and stark personality!"  
  
Dorothy laughed as she agreed. "Are you going to answer my question, or backstab Carl all day."  
  
"The latter seems more fun!" Relena sighed, though, as she brushed a few stray strands of hair from her eyes. She carefully explained to Dorothy all of the thorough details of the situation. "...and they have laid this case on me on top of everything else I have to do."  
  
"Sounds like paranoia!" Dorothy gave a skeptical look.  
  
Relena shook her head in frustration as she rubbed her forehead. "Maybe, but I must be paranoid as well. I have a bad feeling that the ESUN members have stumbled into dangerous accusations. But, the situation seems real, and if it is true, then ESUN doesn't need to go into a panic. Dorothy, would you help me prepare a personnel file with the Preventers research? We will hold any information that needs to remain classified, and give ESUN only vague details."  
  
"That's a little risky, Miss Relena, withholding information from ESUN like that! You would not only get into big trouble and lose your job, but you will be exiled to the Mars Terraformation Project."  
  
"I know its risky, Dorothy, but I don't care about my job or my life, I will not make a wrong move that will end up sacrificing other people's lives. It is the only way; we don't need a biological war!"  
  
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AN: Whew!!! *Wipes forehead* That was one boring chapter, heh? But it had some important information that I needed to get into the story so it would make sense. It is just one of those have-to-do chapters that nobody likes to read. But, don't worry guys, cause the action starts up with Chapter 4! Oh, and sorry, but I couldn't fit Zeches and Noin into this chapter, cause it would seem too random! (I like random things, but that is beside the point. I mean, the best Disney movie was Ice Age, that squirrel was just so random and he always came out of nowhere. I LOVED IT!!!) Back to this, though. They will be entering the story soon though, most definitely by Ch. 6. And as for the rest of the couples, I am slowly working on each of their roles.  
  
Chapter 4 Preview: Now, the action will begin in "Too Lost to be Saved" when Duo and Hilde go to search the research facility that Middie ran away from. However, a mysterious blast has destroyed the building, and Duo and Hilde find themselves being chased down by the enemy. Who is this mysterious new enemy and what will happen to Duo and Hilde if they get caught? Meanwhile, Quatre and Heero head toward the Earth to Preventer HQ to meet up with Lady Une, Wufie, and Sally. Will they be able to figure out what is going on with the disappearances of the doctors and shipments. Next time on Gundam Wing: Too Lost to be Saved. 


	5. Counterfeit Alias

Too Lost to be Saved  
by: WolfCry17  
  
Disclaimer: I do not own gundam wing or any of the characters. However, I do own the storyline and plot. I own something! *jumps for joy*  
  
AN: Anyway, thanks for all the reviews! I really appreciate them! They really help me keep going! Oh, and for all those RelenaXHeero fans, this story IS mainly about them, but the first several chapters won't focus on them alone... actually, both are barely mentioned, but trust me, there shall be several fights, sappy moments, and happy ones between the two of them by a least Ch. 8 give or take....I am still playing this fic by the ear. So please enjoy!!!  
  
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Chapter 4 ~  
  
The following day...  
  
A maze of rumble and debris littered around a half-destroyed building that once resembled a medical research facility, which created quite a stir amoung the public. Armies of police officers of the Space Force, silt- covered firefighters, and overly-curious newsreporters walked through the ashes in complete and utter confusion. Newly-born fires broke out as firefighters swarmed to the scene to reduce the damage. The rich red and yellow flames feasted hungrily upon the ten story building that looked as if it were about to collapse.  
  
An officer of the Space Force nearly spilt the black liquid of in his coffee cup when his radio crackled to life with the voice of a subordinate officer, "Sergeant, I need you over here! We have some um... intruders in question."  
  
The bulky man grabbed the radio to respond as he scratched the hairs of his chin. A heavy sigh escaped his lips. This whole mess just didn't make any sense. The building flamed up in a blaze for no obvious reason. Patrol cars covered the area as officers and the top investigators researched ground zero and two helicopters controlled the skies. There was just no convincible explanation. "I'll be right over, officer."  
  
The sergeant passed several reporters and merely shook his head as he overheard silly explanations that were quickly conjured up for the public eye. "...this random blast must have been caused by an accidental experiment explosion that could not be contained..." "...And as citizens look upon the remains of the Jefferson and Company Medical Research Facility, the Space Force is trying to make sense of what could have gone wrong..." Dozens of poorly-predicted conclusions floated through the air and into the speakers of the video cameras.  
  
Finally, the sergeant reached the subordinate officers Cortez and Hatsumi with two younger individuals, the supposed intruders. "What seems to be the problem?"  
  
Officer Hatsumi stepped forward, "We caught these two trying to enter the building, sir." Officer Cortez pushed the two in front of the sergeant for inspection. The two were dressed in dull, engineer jumpsuits with grey ballcaps. One had a feminine build, but was assumed male due to the short, cobalt blue hair. The other wore a huge grin and had an unusually long brunette braid that reached nearly three feet. "They said they were hired as colonial sweepers to help clean up the mess. I was under the impression we were still under investigation."  
  
The cocky one with the braid spoke up in defense. "Hey, we aren't trying to invade or anything, we only do what we are hired to do, buddy."  
  
"And, who, exactly hired you and what company do you represent?" the sergeant began his interrogation.  
  
"Maxwell & Schebieker Sweepers Incorporated. As to who hired us, all wee got was an urgent email. We couldn't figure out who it was from, except that it was signed Space Force and had a paid transaction attached. So here we are." The same braid-headed one explained as he dug his greasy hands into the pockets of his sweeper jumpsuit.  
  
The towering sergeant eyes the two in disbelief. Why would the Space Forcesend an email to a sweepers organization when the investigation had barely begun? Another mystery. "Officer Hatsumi, check all phone lines and internet-use recordsfrom the last two hours to see who sent the email. Officer Cortez, keep an eye on those two until we've confirmed anything."  
  
As soon as the sergeant turned to leave, he felt his knees give out as the braided intruder shot forward and swiftly kicked the back of his knees in one swift motion. The two subordinate officers, started, began to run to their superior who was wincing on the ground. However, the other intruder just as quickly dropped to the ground to spin kick the two officers into the air and crash unto the ground unconcious. The braided one hit the back of the sergeant's neck to strike the main nerve and temporarily paralyze him.  
  
"Sorry, but we don't have time for that, and we didn't want to disappoint you when you found out there was no such email," Duo grinned as he retrieved the sergeant's gun and radio.  
  
Hilde walked up behind him after relieving the other two of their firearms, "We gotta hurry before someone finds out about this. They're bound to--"  
  
A crackling sound from the radio interrupted Hilde, "Sergeant Harrison! Is everything alright over there? We heard some commotion coming over your channel."  
  
Hilde sighed heavily as she dropped her shoulders, "Too late."  
  
"No, everything's a-okay over here," Duo shot a thumbs up toward Hilde who merely rolled her eyes in response.  
  
The radio crackled to life again, "What! Who is THIS? Hey Officer Gomez, send a back up unit to Harrison's area now!"  
  
"Well, that's just peachy!" Hilde grumbled as she watched Duo throw the radio to the ground and smash it with his foot. "What are you doing? Didn't we need that to make sure they aren't on our tail?"  
  
Duo grabbed Hilde's wrist to pull her towards the rummaged medical building. "There's a tracking device planted on every walkie talkie the Space Force uses. They'll only find us faster if we take it." Duo pulled Hilde through the wreckage, running low to the ground in an attempt not to be seen until they reached a metal door. Hilde turned with gun in hand to keep watch as Duo tried to open the door. Duo's fingers flew over the numbers of the keypad as he entered a deactivation code. However to no avail, the door wouldn't open. "Damn, of all the doors of this building, we had to find the one door that is jammed."  
  
Hilde turned to see Duo back up from the door. "Just great!" Hilde took one more good look at their surroundings until she was completely satisfied no one was around. She glanced back toward Duo to find him turn one shoulder toward the door and brace his footing. "What are you doing? That door is a foot thick metal slab!"  
  
Duo furrowed his eyes and grinned, "Don't worry babe, the building can handle one more broken down door, and I'll be just fine!" With one more deep breath, Duo lunged forward to knock straight into the door.  
  
"Duo! Don't--- ugh, too late!"  
  
Duo slammed into the metal door hard to force enough bolts to break loose to send the door and him flying to the ground inside. Duo slid into bitter darkness as dust rose around him in small patches of smoke.  
  
Outside, Hilde sighed heavily as she grabbed a flashlight and entered the building to find Duo still on the ground. "I was referring to all the noise the metal door would and did create." Hilde raised the flashlight to light up what appeared to be a corridor leading to several different doors, all metal. "Not exactly navigation-friendly."  
  
Duo crouched up while rubbing his bruised up shoulder from the impact as he sarcastically responded, "Well, I am so glad you care so much about what happens to me!" Duo flung his hand back and forth to create an emphasis.  
  
Hilde threw Duo another flashlight as she grinned slyly, "Your welcome, Duo."  
  
*~*  
  
Soft, emerald green eyes fluttered open as space turbulence rocked the shuttle off course for a few seconds. Quatre Winner found himself starring intently to the depths of outer space as a result. His eyes seemed to cloud over as he remembered why he was there. His former comrade and pilot of the mysterious wing zero, Heero Yuy, had requested his help only days before.  
  
Heero had only mentioned the main points of the situation at hand. However, being the head of the Winner Incorporation and trade on L4 as well as being a rather huge sponser to medical research, Quatre was already well informed of the situation. In fact, he had been expecting one of the former gundam pilots to walk through his office door; however, he was genuinely surprised to find that gundam pilot turned out to be the one of the five who completely disappeared for several years.  
  
Quatre smiled to himself. Well, Heero didn't technically disappear. He was always right under their noses, close enough to keep a steady eye on a particular honey blonde politician, yet always far enough to stay out of sight.  
  
Just then, Heero entered the room with an unpleasant look on his face. "Carl Jackson."  
  
Straight and to the point. Quatre chuckled. Heero hadn't changed a bit. "Ah yes, Miss Relena's new personal bodyguard." Quatre chose to say Miss Relena instead of just Relena, which she had insisted time and again Quatre call her by, because of who he was talking to and he remembered once when Duo said that nobody should mess with Relena if they had any wits since she was Heero's territory. Quatre thought it a bit degrading towards Relena at the time, but now that he thought about it and saw the stern, possessive look in Heero's eyes, how could one doubt the true meaning behind those words. Quatre suddenly rose to pour two cups of steaming hot cups of smooth, black liquid. He handed one to Heero who hardly noticed the rough smell of the liquid he had accepted. "He's a hundred percent clean. No record, no bad relations, extensive training, and handy with a gun. His background rises no questions."  
  
"Too clean," Heero quickly corrected. He set his coffee cup down as he brought out his laptop with a complete research file of Carl Jackson uploaded. Quatre quickly moved in to look over Heero's shoulder. "At first glance, nothing seems out of place... however, when I searched for the Baltimore Training Base for Preventers where Jackson supposedly graduated from," Heero hacked into several systems and then let his fingers fly across the keyboard to tye in the base. Then he pressed enter and a single message appeared.  
  
Quatre's eyes widened as he read the message, "No data found."  
  
"It doens't exist," Heero's eyes hardened.  
  
Quatre leaned against the table as if in contemplation, "The data could have been erased or lost, you know, and still, wouldn't Lady Une know if a Preventer base didn't exist?"  
  
"That thought crossed my mind, but when I had a few sources check it out personally, nothing was found, except a random lake." Heero pulled Carl Jackson's personal profile up once more. He then quickly typed in a viral code to infect the file. Quatre leaned over once more in curiousity.  
  
Suddenly, the computer screen started screwing up the image as is a bug were chewing through the file. The file appeared to melt away revealing another page beneath it. A different profile. Quatre's eyes widened again. It was the same stern picture of the man named Carl Jackson, only that wasn't his name. "Andrew Morris Jefferson, the only surviving illegitimate son of J. C. Jefferson. Isn't J. C. Jefferson--"  
  
"Yes," Heero found the remote to the shuttle cabin tv. The screen instantly diplayed scenes of the Jefferson & Company Medical Research Facility in its present state. "J. C. Jefferson owns what's left of the research facility that caught fire 3:00 this morning. A former commander general under Dekim Barton, he barely escaped with his life when the Tallgeese destroyed MO-3. Afterward, he left for L2 to build this facility, which has been a constant problem since dy one."  
  
"However, this still doesn't prove that Carl Ja-- I mean Andrew Morris Jefferson isn't qualified as a preventer or that he has anything on his record." Quatre pointed to Andrew Jefferson's profile. Clean.  
  
However, the tightening of Heero's fist proved he wasn't convinced. There were too many connections. Too many questions. "Why change his name?" He looked up to find Quatre speechless with no answers. Just too many unanswered questions. Silence engulfed the room and lingered in the air as the shuttle found its window for descent to the earth.  
  
*~*  
  
A cool breeze blew softly through the stale air and snaked its way around Hilde's bare shoulders and down her arms as she raised the flashlight. She shivered slightly and silently cursed herself for discarding the heavy jacket of her jumpsuit. She and Duo had somehow found their way up to the sixth or seventh floor, she wasn't sure now. Too many twists and turns, way too many steps, and for goodness sakes, she must have counted over several hundred doors by now. "What exactly are we looking for?"  
  
"Midii said she and her father worked here against their will, and her father was required to do research and perform genetic experimentation," Duo replied as he shuffled through torn files and burnt scraps of paper. Suddenly, a light beamed into his eyes as Hilde flashed her flashlight at him.  
  
"What exactly are we looking for?" Hilde repeated with a bit of irration for the lack of informing response she recieved.  
  
Duo grinned, "Not a damn clue." He opened another file cabinet and peered his flashlight over it to allow him to see better as Hilde shuffled to a lone desk to scavange through. He flipped through several files, each with a name of a doctor of a particular profession. There were eleven in all, and one in particular caught Duo's eye. "Dr. Thomas Une. Homo sapien Genetics Specialist."  
  
Hilde's ears perked up to the sound of the doctor's name and shuffled her way through the ash and remains of files toward Duo. Dr. Thomas Une. "Wasn't that what Trowa called that girl... Midii UNE?"  
  
"Yeah, this must be her father." Duo flipped through a few pages of the doctor's file until he found the profile of the doctor's one and only daughter, Midii Une. "And this proves it. Looks like she had two brothers as well." Duo pulled out the three profiles of Midii Une and her two younger brothers, Robert and Jonathon Une. He quickly scanned the three profiles until his eyes found something that was very disturbing. Almost sickening. "They were used as test subjects!"  
  
Hilde's eyes widened suddenly as she met Duo's very startled cobalt blue eyes. "Test subjects for what?" Just then, the eerie stillness was abrubtly broken with a sudden racket of the only door in the room as the knob was vigorously turned and a single gasp was heard.  
  
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AN: wow, long chapter...I didn't quite get where I wanted, but hey, I can just push everything back a chapter. I didn't want to make this chapter any longer and it seemed like the perfect cliffhanger (I am a seriously huge fan of cliffhangers. They leave me on the edge of me seat. I love em!) I hope you liked it. Please email me if you have any suggestions. I love hearing from everybody!  
  
Anyway, Chapter five is coming, slowly, but is coming...I will get it up ASAP. -K- oh, and sorry, no chapter preview this time...the last preview kind of sumed it up anyway for both this chapter and the next. Til next time! 


	6. The Chase

Too Lost to be Saved  
by: WolfCry17  
  
Disclaimer: I do not own gundam wing.  
  
AN: Sorry this took soo long! However, finals are just around the corner...so, I have been studying like mad! And, of course, tennis isn't in the least bit helpful. ;p Thanks again for the reviews! And don't worry, I have many plans for all our dear gundam couples, and it won't be just random show ups, I promise! I just love them all so much! I am even trying to work out a role for MarieMaya! We'll see how it goes. So here is chapter five *cheers*!  
  
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Chapter 5 ~ The Chase  
  
October 22, AC 197, Colony L2-C8923 Jefferson & Company Medical Research Facility  
  
In the midst of a darkened hallway with ash littering the unstable floor, three lone shadows of figures appeared around a corner squabbling about something. "How did you manage to forget, amongst everything else, to grab the profiles of the eleven doctors when we were ordered to destroy any and all evidence?" The overly scrawny one of the three complained tirelessly toward the other two. They were all dressed in full black uniforms with each a gun ready on their hips for emergency. "Now, because of you incompetents, we are now forced to find those documents and discard them at once, and there are cops sprawled all around the place!"  
  
The only female and the most built of any of them grumbled under her breath at the accusations directed toward her and her partner. Her hair was pulled up in a tight ponytail that was braided to her thigh and a scrowl reached her hard-fixed features. "Hey, get a few things straight, buddy," She pulled a knife to the man's throat almost simultaneouosly, "First off, we were told Officer Daniels was to take care of it, so fuss all you want at him, and secondly, don't forget that if it wasn't for your sorry ass, Une's daughter would never have escaped in the first place, and we wouldn't be on this mission. And thirdly, SHUT UP!" She removed the knife from the man's neck just as swiftly as she had placed it there, and then turned on her heel.  
  
The scrawny one growled viciously under his breath as he tenderly rubbed his neck that contained his precious air supply and essentially his life when he couldn't counter the woman's venomous reponse. Silence soon encompassed the three as they cautiously made their way to a single door. Once they reached it, however, the shuffeling of paper and the silent whispers resonating from inside forced the three to draw their guns in suspicion. "What is that?" The three eyed each other intently as they reached for the doorknob.  
  
*~*  
  
"They were used as test subjects!"  
  
Hilde's eyes widened suddenly as she met Duo's very startled cobalt blue eyes. "Test subjects for what?" Before her question was answered, the eerie stillness was abrubtly broken with a sudden racket of the only door as the knob was vigorously turned. Hilde gasped as the air in her throat caught when Duo pulled her to the ground beside him. He quickly stuffed the portfolios into a small black bag as the door finally creaked open with three sets of footsteps, or as Duo figured.  
  
Duo turned back toward Hilde and signaled for her to follow him behind the desk as the light from the intruders' own flashlight headed their way. Hilde followed him as quickly as she could to avoid from being seen and then copied Duo as he leaned against the side of the desk and cocked his gun.  
  
The female with a braided ponytail shined her flashlight in the direction of where she thought she heard a gun being cocked. As she found the desk, she caught a glimpse of a small foot as it disappeared on the other side of the desk. The woman signaled the two men toward the desk as she proceeded toward it with her gun pointed in front of her. The two men nodded and followed in pursuit. The woman kneeled down to the floor and crawled quietly to the side where she saw the foot disappear as the two men continued upright.  
  
Duo placed his ear against the desk to guess where the three 'men' were, but strangely found he lost a set of footsteps if there were three in the first place at all. He shrugged it off reluctantly, guessing he just miscalculated. He wasn't the great Heero Yuy after all. He prepared to fire and signaled to Hilde once again as he raised one finger, then two, then... three! Duo and Hilde immediately shot up from their momentary cover behind the desk and suddenly got caught in cross fire in the dark.  
  
Through the curtain of darkness, Duo found two shadows dive behind a few rows of cabinets to avoid from being pierced by incoming bullets. 'There ARE only two!' Duo affirmed silently to himself as he suddenly ducked to also avoid backfire and switched guns in the process. 'Yet, something doesn't smell right.' He watched Hilde duck herself, but just as instantly rose again to fire in the direction toward the file cabinets. Duo took another breath to steady himself and quickly followed suit.  
  
Suddenly, Duo found his chance and fired swiftly to increase his accuracy. The bullet sped and sliced through the air until it pierced through thick fabric of black leather to feast upon the tender flesh below. The tall, scrawny man grabbed his blood-painted leg and growling, bit his lip to suppress a scream as water poured from the bottom lids of his eyes. He staggered helplessly and leaned against the cabinets as the other man, who had remained quiet throughout the day, cautiously moved toward him.  
  
"What happened?"  
  
"DAMN SON OF A BITCH SHOT ME!" the scrawny one seethed through his teeth, trying to keep whatever scream lay within him from coming out.  
  
Duo smirked in achievement as he ducked again to reload his two guns.  
  
Meanwhile, the braided woman, who had managed to remain unnoticed by either Duo or Hilde, slowly rounded the desk when she heard the small growl from the man who had been previously scolding her about half an hour ago. She rolled her eyes in irritation at the cowardly man's incompetence. She decided to claim this chance to make her move.  
  
Hilde leaned against the desk and wiped the sweat from her forehead that had collected as she fumbled with a few bullets in an attempt to reload her gun. The sweat that filled the palms of her hands allowed her no success. Suddenly, she felt her body stiffen almost subconsciously as she felt the smooth, cold metal of the barrel of a gun caress her neck. She slightly shivered upon its embrace and followed the gun to the owner, a female with raven black hair pulled back tightly. As Hilde recovered from her initial shock, she glared deathly towards the woman who now held her life.  
  
The woman looked toward her prey and smirked evilly with a conquering eye. "That's enough! Don't waste any more bullets, or one will be wasted on her."  
  
Upon hearing the husky female voice, Duo stiffened in defeat as no more shots were fired. 'So there WERE THREE of them, after all.' Duo cursed himself for not being more alert as he looked toward Hilde's captor and lowered his weapons to the floor. He then glanced down to Hilde's steady, fearless gaze, that same gaze she had the day she escaped from the battleship libra, desperate to get to him. He had called her a stupid and foolish woman that day, and her only response was a single, all-knowing smile. He never meant it. He never once thought that of her. He was only angry that day for her selfless actions and that they could have cost her, her life. She stood just as stubborn and strong now as she did that day, and god, how he loved her for it. She spoke to him through those goddess- like eyes of hers, showing him that she completely trusted him.  
  
Duo's gaze was abrubtly brought back to the reality of the situation when the braided, raven-headed woman broke the silence. "Okay, now tell me who you are and what you are doing here." The two men walked, the scrawny one limping, over and grabbed each of Hilde's arms roughly as the woman approached Duo.  
  
Duo caught Hilde's eye again and smirked to the woman before him. "Oh, we were just hired on the job as sweepers from the Maxwell & Schbieker Sweeper Incorporation. We're here on behalf of the Space Force Police Department. Now, my question is WHO are YOU and why are you holding us hostage?"  
  
The woman growled as she moved in to slap Duo across the face with a hard blow. Duo's head flew to his right from the impact. "You are our prisoners, and we shall ask the questions here, buddy. You can start by answering my question with no more lies."  
  
Duo rubbed his throbbing cheek as he craned his neck to recover from the sudden blow. "I don't know what you mean. I've told you nothing, but the truth, pal."  
  
The woman rose her hand once more, but halted in mid-air. "You lie. The SFPD never contacts any sweeper organization until they have fully investigated the situation. Everybody knows that. Your sweeper jumpsuits are real enough, so I am guessing you used your job status to sneak into this building to investigate on your own. Therefore, you must be connected somehow with the Preventers, especially since the SFPD is at the moment searching for two intruders claiming to be sweeper agents. I can only assume that means the two of you."  
  
Hilde's eyes widened noticably at the blow of their cover and quickly reacted. She kicked the scrawny man in the leg with lionness speed, digging her heel into his bullet wound forcing him to let go of her right arm and squeal. Hilde punched the other man in the crevice of his neck to temporarily knock out his air supply before he could do anything.  
  
The braided woman turned toward them sharply in surprise, and Duo also made his move, high-kicking her in the back, which sent her flying towards Hilde, who prepared, high-kicked the woman in the stomach in mid- air sending her back towards the cabinet rows of files that fell to the ground in a domino effect. Duo sprinted toward the door, urgently grabbing Hilde's wrist to pull her after him in the process, and they bolted out the door down the corridor.  
  
The woman struggled fiercely to shift herself upwards, and she grabbed her aching head, trying to register what had just occurred. The two of them found something; they had to of. Otherwise, why would they react that way. And both were extremely skilled and must have been soldiers in the eve wars, she guessed as she rubbed both her back and stomach where they had successfully injured her long enough for them to make their escape. She glanced over to the scrawny one, who was squealing and hopping on one leg toward the other man, who was just now recatching his breath. 'Maxwell & Schbieker Sweeper Incorporated. Maxwell. That name sounds familiar to me.' "Come on, you goons, after them!"  
  
*~*  
  
Duo barreled down the hall, braid flying and blind as a bat without the flashlights, with Hilde sprinting close behind. Gasping for air, the two picked a random hall and turned to find a possible escape out of the building, but the further they went, the more lost they became and the pitch darkness little helped their confusion. "Who were...those people?" Duo heard Hilde ask between trying to breath and trying not to run into anything as they came to a sudden stop to rest a bit.  
  
"I'm not entirely sure, but I bet they have something to do with the 'supposed accidental explosion' in this building and with Middie Une and her family." Duo struggled to untangle the backpack he had used to carry the files they found from around his arm. Once he succeeded, he placed it on his back for convienence and then, a wild idea hit him like iron. "They were looking for something!"  
  
Hilde placed her hand upon the bumpy texture of the wall to help feel herself around as well as support her overly-exhausted, dehydrated body. "What do you mean? Those files?"  
  
"Has to be. Half of this building was destroyed, and it appears whoever was keeping Middie and her family captive probably wanted to destroy any evidence in a way that would appear to the public as an unexplained accident. Because she escaped! They were afraid she would say something to ruin whatever classified plans this company has been illegally performing." Duo's eyes widened. It did make some sense, even if it was rather assumptuous.  
  
"Your right. If it was an experimental explosion that just got out of hand, then there would be victims, injured or dead. However, the SFPD has found nothing, no wounded, no corpses, nothing. Those three must have come back to get the files we found before the cops found them, most likely to destroy them. And now, they will know we have them when they find the files are missing." Hilde looked around and squinted her eyes down one hallway. "Is that light I see at the end of that hallway?"  
  
Duo turned to where Hilde was pointed and nodded silently. "Yeah, but what's the source?" It could be anything, a small fire, a lamp, the cops, or worse, those three. And he didn't feel like just wandering up to either the cops or those three.  
  
*~*  
  
A shuttle rocked slightly back and forth as the wheels touched the ground of the airstrip in a rather reckless manner. The shuttle strode across the airstrip slowing down every second until it reached a stop. Three individuals stared expectantly as the door to the shuttle opened, transforming into a staircase.  
  
Two young individuals with tousoled hair, one blonde and the other a dark brown, emerged from the shuttle within seconds and adjusting to the gravitational change, made their way to step once again upon the earth. The fresh, pure air played with the tips of their hair as the dark one nodded and the blonde smiled geniunely in greeting. "It's so good to see you again Miss Une, Miss Po, Wufei. Although, I wish this was just a reunion, and not a...situation."  
  
Lady Une smiled weakly in her starched Preventer uniform as she reached out to shake the young Sandrock pilot's hand. "Don't we all, Quatre. Heero." She watched Heero nodd with a determined look on his face. He hadn't changed. "I suppose we have a lot to discuss. We have a car waiting for us in the front." Lady Une turned on her heel as she signaled everyone to follow.  
  
Quatre watched as Heero strode quickly to Lady Une in front as Quatre lingered behind slowly with Wufei and Sally. "It is good to see you, Quatre," he heard Sally softly whisper as they made their way to a brand new black jaguar, the Preventer standard vehicle. "Things aren't looking too good, Quatre. We recieved a message the other day from the Vice Foriegn Minister Darlian's personal assistant that the top officials of ESUN have found a connection with the disappearances and are already assuming the worst."  
  
Quatre furrowed his eyes in contemplation. He knew they would find out sooner or later. To much disbelief, the world and colonial officials are much smarter and more resourceful to get what they need than most people think. "Biological warfare. They must be giving Miss Relena a hard time about it. It will be interesting to see how she resolves the issue, if she can, but I will help her as leader of the Winner Estate. By the way, when did she get an assistant?"  
  
"A few months back, an old acquaintance, Miss Dorothy Catalonia, decided to put Miss Relena in her place and demanded she get an assistant to relieve her workload. Miss Relena, of course, resisted for a long time, but Miss Catalonia was so persistent, Miss Relena finally gave in to save herself from a lot of headaches. And ever since then, Miss Catalonia has been by her side," Sally paused to watch as Quatre's eyes ever so subtlely clouded over at the mention of Dorothy's name. The simple mention of her name made his entire body go numb. After the first eve war ended, Trowa had briefly mentioned the incident that happened between Quatre and Dorothy on Libra to her and Wufei. Only Trowa and Sally understood what happened between the two that day, though it was so unexplainable. "Miss Relena was assigned by the President to research the situation with a group of Preventers of her choice. She and Miss Dorothy have already decided to keep as much information from ESUN as necessary and as for the team of preventers, she has left that decision up to Lady Une."  
  
Quatre's emerald eyes shimmered as he smiled at the thought. He knew just who would be making up that team, but at the same time it frightened him. No, he pushed that issue aside. "So, Miss Relena and Heero will be reunited again after all. It's about time!"  
  
Wufei watched bewildered as the other two exchanged knowing glances, but he shook it aside. He really didn't care what Quatre meant by that anyway. Heero was his own man and all of his actions were done on his own accord. The three finally reached the car to find Lady Une and Heero still talking on either side of the car, ready to get in. Once they saw Sally, Quatre, and Wufei, Lady Une started the engine as Heero took his place in the passenger's seat.  
  
Wufei opened the back car door for Sally and the simple gesture made Sally smile. She quickly climbed in to avoid anyone from seeing the sudden color of her cheeks. "By the way, Quatre," Wufei started before he followed Sally in, "You ought to fire your pilot when you get the chance."  
  
A confused expression wrote itself across Quatre's face. "Huh! Why?"  
  
"That landing was a little too reckless in my opinion. Looks like your pilot was drunk from where I was standing." Wufei entered the vehicle without another word.  
  
Quatre's eyes widened for a second in surprise, then shined with amusement and gave a small chuckle. He'd tell Wufei later that the 'drunk pilot', who was just letting off a little steam over a 'certain situation', was Heero.  
  
*~*  
  
Duo and Hilde stood still contemplating whether or not to take the hallway that led to some light and possibly something else or to keep wandering around in complete darkness. Even if it wasn't anything, if the enemy ends up coming this way, they would most likely go down the lighted hallway, believing that anyone who is being chased in complete darkness would head toward the nearest light source. That was definitely a bad choice, but the light was still so much more inviting than the other choice.  
  
A sudden thundering of footsteps pounding into the ground jerked the two from their reverie to face down the hall they had just ran down. Both quickly looked to each other for an answer, then back to each of their choices. Then, Duo grabbed Hilde's sore wrist again, "Decision made," and they forced their bodies to sprint once more down the hallway that led to the light source. What difference did it make now.  
  
The two dashed for their lives as the adrenaline rushed to their heads. Closer and closer, yet it lingered ever farther, and it felt as if they would never make it before their bodies collapsed, and the pounding behind them was closing in fast. How the hell was the guy who he had shot earlier catching up to them, much less running at all? Heavy breathing sounded and Duo and Hilde could feel their hearts beating so fast, it felt like they would explode any second. Was this chase ever going to end? They finally reached it after about five minutes of full out sprinting, and the light bathed their bodies and blinded their eyes for a few seconds. Then a sudden halt and a suppressed scream.  
  
Duo and Hilde couldn't believe their eyes and were in too much of a shock to remember the three were still closing in on them. It was the weirdest thing Duo had ever seen, and the most inconvienent thing for their situation. 'Dammit. Not good!'  
  
Duo and Hilde looked down where the hallway ended due to a collapse of the building. A huge hole was blown away from the inside that split the building in two. It was several hundred feet deep, and the rest of the hallway continued about fifteen feet away on the other side. Definitely not short enough to jump across, and the bottom was filled of darkness, so there was no telling how it extended. Jumping down was certainly not an option either. Duo backed Hilde away, feeling completely uncomfortable with her being so close to the edge.  
  
"Well, well, it looks like this is the end of the line for you two," at the sound of that braided woman's eerie tone, Duo and Hilde jolted around. "You have something we want."  
  
'Shit!' Duo had mentally forgot why they were running when he saw the gapping hole behind them. 'Now what?' He was completely at a loss. How was he going to get Hilde out of this mess safely? There were just no options left. "I don't know what you are talking about." Duo kept a protective arm around Hilde's waist to keep her from subconciously moving backward as they approached. He had to keep her away from that ledge.  
  
"Don't play games with us. If you want to live, you will realize you are not in a position to get out of here alive if you retaliate, and you should give us what we want. So do you want to live or die? Either way, we get those files, so don't be foolish."  
  
Duo was now wishing beyond everything that he had gone against his better judgement and taken Hilde down the oblivion of darkness instead of this lightened hallway. If they got out of this alive, he promised he would never let Hilde do anything like this again with or without him. He almost lost her once, and that tore every fiber of who he was when he saw her strolled away on that medical table. He didn't want to ever risk losing her again, and yet, here they were.  
  
The impatient woman, not satisfied with Duo's lack of response, signaled the two men to collect the backpack Duo was carrying. The two men approached, making Hilde want to back up allow she soon found she couldn't, and then attacked without a second's notice with gruesome tactics. The quiet one landed a hard blow up towards Duo's chin swinging his head back a bit, forcing him to release his grip on Hilde, who was thrown across the floor toward the other woman.  
  
Hilde forced herself from the floor after she finished rolling and tried to lunge toward the two men to help even the odds for Duo. However, as she was about to leap into the air from her crouched position, the braided woman spun to impact her knee into Hilde's neck, almost breaking it, but only throwing her across the floor again. Hilde recovered slowly from the deadly blow as she coughed up some blood and struggled to breath. The woman came after her again not satisfied with Hilde's poor condition. Hilde, still on the floor forced both of her legs up to catch the woman in mid air who tried to throw herself upon Hilde. Then, with all her might, she pushed her legs out to fling the woman behind her down the hall. The woman landed in an awkward position and grabbed her shoulder as she struggled up again.  
  
"Hilde!" Duo yelled as he saw her caught in a fight with that wretched woman, but he had his own problems too. If he could just get away from these men long enough to save Hilde. However, the two men were relentless upon claiming his backpack as they hit his already weak body. Punch after punch. The scrawny one sent his hand flying toward Duo, but Duo blocked it and with a swift flick of his hand, displaced the man's wrist in an abnormal position. The scrawny one wailed in pain as the quiet one somehow managed to kick Duo in the ribs, which sent him skidding across the floor toward the edge. 'Too close!' Duo rolled one his back in a rocking position to fling his legs up, forcing the rest of his body to fly in mid air and land on his feet.  
  
The silent one was after him again. Duo blocked a few kicks and threw a few, blocked a few punches and threw a few, but neither man touched the other. Duo did a backflip to avoid a spin kick and saw the scrawny one coming after him as he did so. He turned to rotate his leg toward the man's stomach to avoid from losing the backpack and hit a clean shot. The man flew backwards and the quiet one jumped on Duo's back tugging on the backpack. Duo turned back and rammed into the wall several times in an attempt to dismantel the guy on his back. The man lost his grip around Duo's neck and plumated to the ground, but grabbed the backpack that was still around Duo's shoulders, so it forced him to land not so gracefully on his rear end. Duo gripped the backpack and tried to wrestle it away from him.  
  
Hilde jumped in the air to avoid the braided woman's low kick aimed at her knees. As she landed, she ran back a ways to set a footlock upon the ground. The woman plunged at her, and Hilde pushed off her back foot to spring herself at the woman. She landed on the woman's left knee and jumped off just as quickly to spin herself in the air and kick the woman in the head. The woman fell to the ground by the impact and remained motionless.  
  
Hilde cautiously walked toward the woman to check if she had successfully disabled her, but much to her disliking, the woman grabbed Hilde's foot and pulled it, making Hilde fall to the floor with a thud.  
  
Duo found himself rolling on the floor with the quiet man'd hands clutching Duo's neck, suffocating him. Duo tried to grind his hands into the other mans to force the man to losen his grip on Duo's neck, but to no avail, and they were getting closer and closer to that damn ledge. Duo growled in exasperation as the scrawny one tried to jam his hand into the wall to reposition his hand. He only succeeded in furthering its dislocation.  
  
The quiet one managed to roll Duo's head of the edge so he dangled in the air, which made Duo not only concentrate on getting that bloody hand from choking off the rest of his air supply, but also to keep his head up so they both wouldn't plummet to the bottom. Duo finally puched the man square in the face, which released his grip on Duo's neck. Catching his breath, Duo kicked the oncoming scrawny man again. However, in the process, the quiet one recovered with his aching jaw, spun around and landed his foot in Duo's ribs sending him backwards into the air.  
  
Time stood still as his eyes widened from the surprise and then traveled toward Hilde's, who at that moment decided to look toward him as she kicked the other woman away. He saw the shocked look in those lovely eyes of hers as he registered what was happening. There was nothing he could do, and everything was happening in slow motion to him.  
  
Hilde had kicked the woman into the wall when she turned to see Duo kicked into the air by the quiet man. Her heart skipped a few beats in that instant as she saw Duo plummet off the edge of the floor. She couldn't think, couldn't react. She was stuck, struck at what she saw. She looked into Duo's fearless eyes as tears welled up into her own. In that moment, she sprinted toward him and reached out in an attempt to catch him, but she just couldn't reach. He was just too far. "DU-U-U-O-O-O-O-O! NOOO-O-O-O-O!" She choked up the sobs in her throat as she watched the man she loved with all her heart disappear into the darkness of the abyss below. She screamed his name again. "DUO-O-O-O-O-o-o-o-o-o-!!!"  
  
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AN: Oh, cliffhanger! Please, don't shoot me. *on knees, begging* My sister has already threatened me with a knife, literally. *cringes at the memory* I am probably going to get a lump of coal for Christmas for doing this...from my sister at least. Yeek. So there is the much awaited Chapter 5...and Chapter 6 is already on the way! YAY! But what has happened to our poor Duo? What will Hilde do when she registers what just happened?  
  
Is this the end? To find out, you will have to read the next chapter, which I promise will be out by Christmas weekend! I promise!!!  
  
Of course, finals are this week coming up, so I will be lucky if I even get chapter five written by this Friday, then there is christmas shopping, Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King is coming out! YAY! Plus, a whole lot of napping after I get out for the semester. I haven't really slept in weeks, and I have been writing like crazy, instead of studying. Bad Wolfcry...bad. *slaps hand* but hey, at least you all benefit from it. So, Merry Christmas to all, Happy Hanuka, & Happy Holidays to all! 


	7. Cheating Death

Too Lost to be Saved  
by: WolfCry17  
  
Disclaimer: I do not own gundam wing or any of the original characters.  
  
AN: Wow! I finally got this chapter done. Yay! Thank goodness finals are over...they were a killer. Thanks again for the reviews! I really appreciate it...and if anyone has some advice, I completely welcome it.  
  
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Chapter 6 ~ Cheating Death  
  
That same day...  
  
"DUO-O-O-O-O-O!" Hilde hopelessly screamed through her sobs into the smoke-filled air as, a cold wind blew in a spiral-like motion down the gap of the building. It chilled Hilde to the bone and froze the tears that left a crystaline path down her cheeks. They wouldn't stop. He was gone.  
  
Her body fell numb, weak, motionless until the strength of her knees gave out bringing Hilde on her hands and knees at the edge, where Duo had just fallen not even five minutes ago. 'No, no Hilde. This is a dream. It is just a dream. Wake up!' But, she was still there, overlooking the same darkness that engulfed the only love she ever knew. She did love him. As cruel as life is, she didn't realize until now just how much she cared for that goofy, sloppy, loud, obnoxious, absolutely dreamy hell of a man. 'No, it's just a dream.'  
  
She suddenly jerked away when she felt two pairs of hands lift her up and try to pull her away from that ledge. She struggled fiercely with all the stength she had left to free herself from their clutches. "How could you? HOW COULD YOU, YOU BASTARDS!" Tears blurred her vision as she abrubtly turned to face the two men, who had been responsible for Duo's fate, and slapped their hands away from her. She wrapped her arms around herself shakily trying to hold herself up as she slowly backed up away from them, not wanting anything to do with them. She felt the back of her left heel lose ground and for a second lost her balance. In a mental surge of apprehension, she quickly leaned forward to balance herself out again as she looked back to see why she lost her balance in the first place. Oh yeah, the ledge. But then, in that same moment, the darkness overwhemingly seemed to welcome her.  
  
"What are you doing, you foolish woman? Back up away from there! Unless you want to share the same fate as your equally-foolish boyfriend." The scrawny one yelled, extending his hand in an effort to convince her. Besides, they still needed to figure out if those files really were in that backpack they had now lost.  
  
Hilde glarred with venom at the bloody hand extended toward her as time seemed to slow down again. All sounds ceased to reach Hilde's ears, except the rythmic thumping of her heart. She saw the same man still talking, but his words never reached her, never came close. Her body seemed to have a mind of its own as she felt the assertion of her legs, moving back from the three others until both of her feet now rested next to the ledge. She stared at the three people in front of her at a loss, hopeless without her one pillar of strength anymore. She looked away from the three toward the dark abyss below. It was so very welcoming, beckoning her toward it, as the stiff air above seemed to blow down trying to tilt her body just enough. One lone tear escaped from her cheek and cascaded down to be engulfed by darkness.  
  
Her gaze traveled once more to the three individuals, the scrawny one still speaking and slowly moving towards her with his arm still extended out. Hilde looked on through strands of astray hair, out of place due to all the fighting. Then, without thinking, she closed her eyes to welcome the darkness and leaned back with her arms spread out wide to allow the air to catch her, and she sunk through the wind's weak grasp.  
  
The scrawny man cursed at Hilde's stupidity as he raced to the edge in an attempt to catch her before it was to late. But it WAS too late. He watched her limp body sail downward through the air until he lost sight of her. "Stupid girl!"  
  
The braided woman merely smirked with merriment in her eyes. Their problem was now taken care of and, now, all they had to do was find the boy's dead body to retrieve that backpack. "Come on. We still have work to do."  
  
*~*  
  
The feel of the air blowing up rapidly against her frail body soothed her as she allowed the darkness to gulp her down to the bottom. Her mind was blank from all feeling, and little goosebumps covered her body as the dramatic change in temperature decreased, further freezing her body. Was this what it was like to die.what it was like to be dead? She always imagined a light at the end of some hopelessly long tunnel, not the bitter feeling of nothingness. Then again, all that was left in her heart was a bitter nothingness.  
  
Hilde merely accepted this fate. No one was there to help her, no one could save her, and she couldn't even save herself if she truely wanted to. This somehow pleased her as she felt her body quicken its pace toward the ground below. The impact now stung her body like a thousand knives playing on her skin, caressing her skin as she neared the bottom.  
  
But the bottom never came. Everything, the impact, the pain, the falling, it all just suddenly stopped. "Am I dead?"  
  
"No," Hilde's eyes fluttered open in complete shock and realized that she wasn't touching the ground at all, but still dangling in the air unexplainably. That's when she felt it. A rough, warm hand clasped her own, denying her body the right to keep falling further down to meet her fate. She was still alive! Her gaze followed up her arm to try and see what held her up, but it was too impossibly dark to see anything. All that assured her of anything was that simple touch that heated her hand.  
  
"How could you be so stupid? Why the hell did you just decide to jump off that ledge like a sardine to die? What the hell were you going to accomplish? You damn, foolish, incredibly stupid woman." Hilde's heart pounded rapidly beneath her breast as her ears registered that voice, that tone, that beautiful music. Tears engulfed her shocked eyes and poured freely once again down her cheeks in happiness.  
  
"DUO!" She sobbed endlessly, "I though you were...you were," she couldn't even speak the words.  
  
Duo grinned devilishly, though Hilde couldn't see it. "No way, you can't get rid of me that easily!" With one last surge of strength of his own, he pulled Hilde up, constraining his tired muscles, to his chest to feel her soft, sound body nest to his, all while his other hand remained gripped onto a random slab of concrete that he had managed to catch on his own fall down. Hilde wrapped her own warm arms around his neck while her legs found their way around his waist as she cried desperately into his shoulder. How in the world he managed to catch unto that slab of rock and then catch her, blind as a bat, was beyond him. What were the chances anyway? He didn't care how or why it happened as he locked his free arm around her waist in an attempt to bring her closer to him, he was just happy it did. Someone was watching over them, and Duo silently prayed a thank you.  
  
He then felt Hilde push herself away from him ever so slightly, and without warning, Hilde raised her hand and slapped him square across the face. His cheek throbbed horribly as his mind registered what just happened. Dang, even in pitch black, she had perfect aim. "ARGH, WHAT was THAT for?"  
  
"For scaring the hell out of me! Do you have any idea what was going through my mi--"  
  
Duo smirked as he listened to Hilde's melodic voice rambling on without a breath of air between words. Duo merely leaned his head down and kissed what he figured was her cheek, cause he felt her jaw immediately become motionless when he did so. He then explored around with light kisses here and there until he found her lips to claim as his own. Once he did, he felt Hilde balance herself on him while she stroked his messy locks with one hand and then fully responded to his kiss with a passionate fire.  
  
*~*  
  
In the Sanq Kingdom, 11:30 p.m...  
  
"But, Mr. Jackson, sir Miss Relena has already retired to her courters, and it wouldn't be gentlemen-like to intrude her privacy. Besides, the Preventer Commander in Chief Lady Une has ordered the installation of the most sophisticated security system in the world around her room and this entire palace for the matter." Relena's most trusted friend and most loyal confident, Peygan, argued sensably trying to convince her new personal bodyguard Carl Jackson to leave her be. He knew how much Relena loved to be on her own once she settled into her room, because it was the one place she could be entirely alone. If she wanted to be around people, she would venture out.  
  
Carl Jackson seemed unaffected by the old man's reasoning, which to him sounded quite inferior words. The old man was much too lenient toward his mistress's safety. When the old man continued to persist, Carl turned sharply before heading to the grand staircase, "Mr. Peygan, I do realize how much you care for my client, Miss Relena, however, I do not appreciate you telling me how to do my job. So, if you will escuse me--"  
  
"Client! I am not sure you realize this but the Vice Foriegn Minister is not your client, but your superior--" Peygan continued on completely outraged at the very nerve of this man to consider Miss Relena as his inferior.  
  
Two baby blue orbs looked upon the conversation intently from around a corner darkened by the lack of lights, which were scheduled half an hour ago to be turned off. She watched the two arguing men ascend the staircase toward Miss Relena's room at last, which satisfied her. 'Good!' Blonde hair swept through the air as the woman turned quickly and ran lightly on her toes like a mouse to avoid making too much sound. Breathing lightly and stopping by another corner, she rested to look both ways, but this wing of the palace was flooded with darkness, so no one should be up and around. Still, she thought she must check.  
  
The woman backed up slightly to look down the hallway she had just come down to make sure no one was following. As she did, she bumped into a head stature resting on a three-foot pillar. Her eyes widened and her heart skipped a beat when she lunged to catch it just before it hit the floor and shattered. She sighed in relief as she stood up to replace the artifact to its original position.  
  
With that, she rounded the corner to head to her destination. She finally reached a single door lit up by the streams of moonlight cascading though a window across the hall. The woman hesistantly opened the creaking door and peered in to make sure no one was occupying the room. She smirked and slid behind the door as the quickest way in with the lowest chance of anyone just passing by seeing her. She quietly closed the door behind her and flicked a portion of her long, straight hair off her shoulders. "Finally," she quickly turned the switch to her flashlight to light up what appeared to be a guest room. "Now to find out who you really are, Carl Jackson." She glanced around until she found something that might give her so much as a clue and found Carl's suitcases, a black preventer bag, and a small metal box, the size of a shoebox.  
  
*~*  
  
A single hand controlled a soft brush agilely through a cascade of golden tresses as Relena looked at her dull reflection in her vanity mirror. The brush slowed its pace as Relena lost herself in her thoughts. How'd she end up like this? All she ever did anymore was work and when she finally got home, that's all she ever did, stay home. She felt trapped, enclosed in a suffecatingly small confinement that led to no escape.  
  
She thought that the people of the Earth Sphere had finally accepted peace and learned how to coexist. She hoped that one day, the Earth Sphere would no longer need foriegn ambassadors to cooperate with each other, or at least use them just as messengers instead of someone to rely on. However, now there was another possible crisis and the ESUN was already falling apart. Why? It seems that an important lesson is learned after every huge conflict and devastitating war, but the people always seem to forget those lessons learned, and repeat history. Was MarieMaya right in that aspect that history would always repeat itself? 'No, Relena stop.' She had to keep her faith in the people or there would be no hope for the future. How could she give up so easily on her trust in each citizen when each citizen still wished for absolute peace and freedom. 'Not every citizen.' There were still those filled with power-hungry, revengful minds who would never give up their meaningless fight.  
  
'This is not meaningless! Even if it does become a disgrace to future generations, the battle still has plenty of meaning to it.' 'My dear Relena, you've grown up strong Relena, but your strength is no longer needed. I want you to at least remain a kind woman.' Relena's eyes widened as she dropped her brush on the vanity table. She turned, but no one was there. "Brother..." Relena shook her head mindlessly. Now, she was hearing things.  
  
'Relena, I promised that I would protect you, but in order to protect you and the Earth Sphere, Relena, I have no choice, but to fight.' 'No.' Relena subconciously responded. 'Believe in me.' Relena stepped toward her bed to grasp the chocolate bear that always rested soundly in front of her silk green pillows. "Heero..." she choked out as she clutched the bear to her chest.  
  
"Who is he?" The unexpected voice rudely interrupted Relena's reverie, forcing her to gasp and drop the furry teddy bear as if it was nothing.  
  
She turned toward the source of the voice and glared angrily at the intruder. "What are you doing here? You didn't even knock!"  
  
"I am your bodyguard, Relena. It's my duty to make sure you are safe, and that includes making sure that your room is secure." Carl Jackson approached Relena with that same over-confident grin on his face. He was fairly amused by the little brat's glare she was giving him in an attempt to faze him. This was the woman that the Earth Sphere depended upon too much. He eyed her intently; his gaze fell from her eyes and followed each curve that filled the tiny emerald nightgown she wore almost...lustfully. Maybe she wasn't just a little spoiled rich brat, but a woman.  
  
Relena's eyes widened in shock and wrapped her arms possessively around her body to hide what her tight nightgown couldn't. She saw it. There was pure amusement and lust in his eyes. It was unmistakable. She suddenly felt very scared, frightened, and alone. Why the hell did she put this stupid thing on anyway? "My name is Miss Darlian to you, Mr. Jackson!" She kept a careful eye on his every movement as he moved toward her bed to pick up the forgotten bear. When he turned his back to her, she quickly turned to grab her robe off the vanity chair. She wrapped it tightly around herself as Carl turned back toward her.  
  
"Who is he?" Carl tenderly caressed the bear's soft fur and then moved on to rub the thin fabric of red ribbon between his thumb and forefinger.  
  
Once Relena felt somewhat secure beneath her thick, jade robe, she was able to gain control of her body once more and put on her political facade. "Who?" She moved past him, claiming her little soldier bear away from Carl in the process.  
  
Carl mused once again at Relena's possessive actions toward the silly stuffed animal. "The guy who gave you that bear." Carl noticed Relena open the balcony doors of her bedroom and decided to follow her out.  
  
"Whoever said a 'guy' gave me this bear?" Relena avoided the question as she proceeded to the edge of her semi-circular balcony. She gazed up toward the twinkling stars, which seemed somewhat dimmer than last night. Suddenly, a single star streaked across the sky, lighting up everything around it on its journey, Relena closed her ceralean eyes once it passed. 'Heero.' A single tear left her eyes and wettened her cheek as it slid down.  
  
"How long do you expect this peace shall last when too many people still rely on you, Miss Darlian?" Carl leaned against the wall and watched Relena's body tense. He struck a cord.  
  
Relena hardened her eyes upon the rustling trees below as the wind picked up and whistled through the air. What was with this guy? First, he invades her only private sanctuary, then he sets her uneasy under that sickeningly lustful gaze of his, and now he was questioning everything that so many people have strived to accomplish. "The people don't rely on my position or the fact that I hold that position. The people of the Earth's sphere want true peace, despite the few misguided rebel factions that crop up every now and then."  
  
"Are you sure, Miss Darlian? I can bet you my life that if anything were to happen to you, the whole of the ESUN would crumble under the fore winds. And you and your beliefs, Miss Relena, are the very cause to that problem."  
  
Relena clenched up her fists to contain her anger. Was she really in the wrong about everything she ever stood for? She realized a year ago during the MarieMaya coup d'taet that total pacifism was only a fool's dream and war was sometimes meaningful in the fight to peace. That's why she gave up her name as Peacecraft as did her brother, because that name was no longer necessary for the world. But is she also mistaken that even that fight and those who represent the people's wishes are not enough to give true peace to the world? Was the world not happy in this time of peace, or with this kind of peace? What then, was the answer? "You show little faith in the world around you. That sort of thinking causes all these needless revolts and unnecessary loss of innocent life."  
  
Carl lifted an eyebrow as he noticed how long Relena took to respond and how her answer sounded somewhat unsteady. "Hmph, I believe Miss Relena, that your beliefs are wavering. You aren't sure anymore what you believe is right or the correct path to that unreachable dream of everlasting peace. The last time the world knew of peace was when every nation and every tribe was ignorant that others existed around them. However, that was thousands of years ago and no one can live in the bliss of ignorance anymore. Knowledge and technology has poisoned the world. Those 'needless' revolts and the 'unnecessary' loss of innocent life play the most crucial role in the development of society to reach that peace again. Wars will never cease, my dear, despite how many hours you politicians waste argueing over everything under the sun. Until the people can learn to cooperate with each other and govern themselves, then rebellions will never stop. "  
  
"That will never happen so long as every human mind thinks differently and uniquely. And the people do govern themselves indirectly through political leaders. There are too many lives in the Earth's Sphere to hear out each thought of each mind. Nothing would ever be accomplished."  
  
Carl chuckled at Relena's stubbornness, but he continued to challenge her. It was quite fun, after all. "Politics is nothing but a corrupt system filled with power-hungry men who only think of their own ambitions. As Henry David Thoreau once said, "Simplicity, Simplicity, Simplicity." According to Throeau, life can not be truefully and peacefully lived unless each individual relies only on themselves to manage their life. As long as each human remains dependent upon others, the more people will lust for power and people to depend upon them, and the longer wars will resist to cease."  
  
Carl watched as Relena appeared deep in thought as if contemplating his truth. When it became apparent that she wouldn't respond, Carl headed toward her door to make his exit. "Goodnight, Miss Darlian."  
  
Relena listened her door click to affirm Carl left, and sighed, "What you are proposing, Mr. Jackson, is downright perposterious. How can people let go of reliance upon everything but themselves? The colonies would shut down and eventually fall upon the Earth. The colonists and those working on the terra-formation project would die without technology."  
  
*~*  
  
Blonde strands fell forward, covering baby blue eyes as they searched tirelessly through every suitcase that littered the ground of Carl Jackson's room. Clothes, suits, socks, collagne that gave off the worst aroma she ever smelt, more clothes. Nothing out of the ordinary. The woman, frustrated, zipped up and pushed the offending suitcases aside.  
  
The woman rubbed her temples to help relax her throbbing muscles as she reached for the single preventer bag that Carl had brought with him from headquarters. She breathed heavily and balanced the flashlight between her shoulder and cheek to leave both of her hands free. She then proceeded to open the black bag, and as expected, found several guns with additional shots, a radio, cell phone, a small laptop, several other tiny gadgets, along with files, reports, and assignments.  
  
She glanced through the text of each file until she came across the assignment of guard duty for the Vice Foriegn Minister Darlian. Curiously, she opened it up slowly and found an extensive profile and history of Relena Darlian-Peacecraft down to the every detail of her medical history. 'Medical History? Why does he need that?' She flipped through a few pages until one that was all marked up caught her eye. It was Relena's records on her blood type, immunity records, genetic make-up, and the symptoms of diseases she had ever experienced in her life time. All of which was highlighted. She furrowed her eyes in bewilderment.  
  
She glanced back at the silver metal box, which was the size of a shoebox. There was something strange and almost sinister about the mysterious box. She finally decided, after several seconds of thought, to lay the file aside, which was still open to the same marked up page. She pulled the box toward her and found it sealed tight with a master lock. 'Damn.'  
  
She grabbed her flashlight and tenaciously hit the end of it against the lock several until it broke free from its hold, which allowed the lid to fly open. The woman felt a cool breeze resonate from inside and play upon her skin as a light from within revealed the mysterious box's contents. It was a small refrigerated box with a dozen or so labeled tubes with liquid inside each. One in particular was highlighted and caught her eye. She picked it up slowly as not to break it and read the label quietly. Her eyes widened as she looked back to Relena's medical files and the marked page, then gasped. Before she could react to what she just uncovered, she felt a sharp pain enter at the back of her skull and darkness suddenly engulfed her.  
  
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AN: YAY! I finished it! I was going to put this up last night, however, I went to see LOTR: The Return of the King! Good Times! So, I am now just getting this chapter up, and I am about to start Chapter 7. Hopefully, now that school's out for a couple of weeks, I can really get this fic going. *crosses fingers*  
  
Again, sorry, it has taken me so long to really get this fic going, but I really wanted to thoroughly introduce the problem that is arising, instead of a crisis just suddenly happening. So many fics do that, and I just wanted to do something a little different. These first several chapters should almost be a prequel to the main plot of the story....cause if anyone has realized this, my synopsis hasn't even tied in yet to my story. But don't worry guys, cause now I have developed the mood and scene to allow the plotline to occur, and this story will truely start by the next chapter, and most certainly by Chapter 8  
  
Just to let you all know, I decided against a prequel because I couldn't find a way for these first few chapters to stand alone as a prequel. But just the same, they are very necessary. Thank you all who have kept with me this long, and I truely am appreciative for all the reviews I have recieved.  
  
I personally would like to thank Kiya Mikayla Kideackiy, Psycho Kitty, sweetangel4, and Sanae for taking the time to review my story. Thank you so much! I really appreciate your input!  
  
Well, until next time! 


	8. Running out of Time

Too Lost to be Saved  
by: WolfCry17  
  
disclaimer: I do not own any of the gundam wing characters.  
  
AN: I am so very sorry this took so long! I was really planning on getting a few chapters out during Christmas. Heh, yea... right! Well, I can go on and on with lame excuses, but I am not really in the mood to bring forth the effort and the truth is mainly, I am LAZY! But, what can I say?  
  
Anyway, despite my lack of effort, I would really like to thank everyone who has reviewed my story thus far. I really would never have made it this far if it hadn't been for all of your encouraging words. I have written many stories in the past, none of them posted though, and I never made it past chapter 2. So, thank you so very much, Nubia, Airen2, and GundamGal'05. I really appreciate your thoughts.  
  
And hey, I have some decently good news...I am already starting chapter 8, so hopefully by the end of next week, I will have it up. *crosses fingers*  
  
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Chapter 7 ~ Running out of time  
  
October 23, A.C. 197, 5:00 pm  
  
"Mr Jefferson, sir, the three officers Amanda Collins, Dedrick Daniels, and Damon Allecks have finally returned from their mission to destroy the files of the eleven doctors," rough, calloused fingers grasped unto a thin clipboard as a young man read the information contained upon the clipped sheets of paper to his superior. Azure eyes glanced from the clipboard and watched a bulky office chair turn to reveal its bulky occupant as a ring of thick smoke emerged from his chapped lips.  
  
The short, bald man rested his elbow on his nearby desk to prop up his large head as his other hand removed a long pipe of niccatine from his mouth. Small, beady eyes resonated an eerie gaze toward the fidgeting man with the clipboard. "Good. Send them in right away. I want confirmation that those papers were completely erased from this life." A plastered grin, etched upon the man's face, signaled satisfaction as the subordinate officer saluted and turned to retrieve those requested.  
  
Within minutes, the loud swoosh of the automatic, sliding door alerted Mr. Jefferson to gaze up toward three officers: a young woman whose raven hair was pulled tightly into a braid, a scrawny man who appeared injured in the leg from a bullet wound, and a tall man who hardly spoke a word. "Did you acquire and destroy those documents?" The bald man stood from his oversized chair and pulled open a side drawer in his desk.  
  
The three before Mr. Jefferson stood silently until the scrawny one stepped forward. "Sir, my team ran into some... difficulties."  
  
Mr. Jefferson, surprisingly unfazed by the revelation of their total failure, pulled a shiny silver pistol with 24K gold edges that accented the deadly monstrousity. He delicately fingered the soft designs etched into the gun's surface, never once gazing up towards the distraught officers.  
  
The braided woman, Amanda Collins, stepped hesistantly forward in a nervous response. "Sir, two individuals claiming to be colonial sweepers from Maxwell & Schebieker Sweeper Incorporated managed to get past security into the facility. They found the documents on the eleven doctors we abducted, and... we are assuming they were Preventer agents."  
  
"I see," Mr. Jefferson remained fixated upon the silver pistol, "did you recover them?" The answer was evident. A deep rise in tension was solid proof. The bald man rounded his desk slowly and perched himself on the edge, waiting expectantly.  
  
The scrawny one, Damon Allecks, gulped, restricting his throat from allowing any air through. "We were caught in crossfire and then a chase. However, we lost the two and the papers when they accidentally slipped and fell seven stories down in the most wrecked section of the building. There's no way either one could have survived that fall."  
  
Dedrick Daniels, looked up suddenly and shot Allecks a warning glance, intervening with his own account, "We have no evidence to confirm that! When we searched ground zero where we estimated they would land, we found nothing, not even so much as a trail of blood. The papers are gone, we know that much. The question is are they permanently gone or do we have reason to suspect they are currently in the wrong hands?"  
  
"Indeed," Mr. Jefferson slammed the barrel of the pistol upon the mahoghany surface and ran the end along the edge of the desk, creating an eerie screech as it scratched the unrepairable material.  
  
Damon Allecks watched suspiciously as his boss and commander manuevered his most prized pistol along the edge of the desk. Damon felt the shins of his legs suddenly shake uncontrollably as he fought the urge to hide like a coward. "There is absolutely no possible way those preventer agents, if that was indeed whom they were, could have survived. Despite our lack of evidence! It defies all logic!"  
  
A devilish, yet amused grin crept upon the wrinkly face of Mr. Jefferson, "Possibility is quite different from probability, Mr. Allecks. Does the name Maxwell mean nothing to you, Mr. Allecks? That is the very name of the 02 gundam pilot of the gundam Deathscythe Hell, Duo Maxwell. After serving under both Tubarov and Dekim Barton during the eve wars, you should have been well aware of that simple fact. But then again, Mr. Allecks, you were never a man to take lightly to minor details and your incompetence was further proven when you allowed Une's daughter to escape the facility." Mr. Jefferson pushed himself away from his desk and approached a now kneeling Damon Allecks. Mr. Jefferson quickly brought the barrel of the pistol to feel the skin of Allecks's forehead as he continued to interrogate him. "Now, because of you, Une's daughter and those eleven files are in the hands of the preventers. Because of you, my entire research facility lies in shambles, and my cover was almost blown out the roof."  
  
Damon Allecks's eyes widened as drops of sweat wettened his forehead and collected upon the smooth surface of the pistol. "Please, Mr. Jefferson, please... let me explain... you don't understand... I did everything I could, please... give me another chance..." Damon felt warm tears glaze over his eyes as he starred into Mr. Jefferson's own sinister ones. Blood. They were thirsty for blood! Those eyes lusted for the aroma of crimson blood!  
  
"Explanations? Your pathetic excuse as a slip-shot officer and your lack of accomplishment is all the explanation I need. The other one might be dead, but I can assure you, that gundam pilot is still alive. I will no longer risk allowing you more chances in my plans. Life is based on only one chance, and you can never change it once you've taken it."  
  
Damon's eyes widened once more for a brief second, when his entire lifetime flashed before him, and then a loud shot rang throughout the room as fresh blood spilled out leaving a crimson trail down the now unsightly face of Damon Allecks. Amanda looked away in utter disgust as Dedrick closed his eyes to save him the unpleasant sight. Mr. Jefferson smiled sadistically toward the revelance of the thick red substance as it stained the tile in a small pool beneath the dead man. He took a small hand rag and quickly wiped away the blood and sweat mixture off the edge of his gun before quickly discarding the rag in the nearest trash can.  
  
"Sir, give us 72 hours. My partner and I will correct the mistake Allecks made by retrieving those papers before it is too late." Amanda forced herself to regain her composure and speak forward to save herself and her partner, Dedrick, from sharing the same fate.  
  
The newly cleaned pistol was once again placed inside its protective case within the desk's side drawer. "72 hours! In 72 hours, the preventer organization, not to mention the former gundam pilots, will be well aware of our operations, and we will be finished. No, it is already too late to fix Allecks's mistake. I have a different mission in mind for the two of you now, my dear Amanda. Oh, and by the way, let this incident serve as a reminder and warning to you both. I can not afford any more mishaps."  
  
*~*  
  
A sudden, obnoxious beeping filled a tiny room bathed in darkness, interrupting the drowsy man who had been previously resting on the single bed. He abrubtly surged upward to answer the call on his vidcam, knocking over books, pens, and other inanimate objects in the process. "Carl Jackson, here."  
  
A gentle tapping of a pen upon a pile of papers greeted him as he watched the face of his superior J.C. Jefferson fill the screen with a more than irritated look radiating from his gray eyes. "My son, I hope you are completing your mission successfully with the Vice Foreign Minister."  
  
Carl grinned, quite amused at the very mention of the title assigned to the beautiful, niave girl whose life lay in his hands. "I have resourcefully captivated onfidence with the head of preventers, who fully trusts me with the dear Miss Relena's life. Miss Relena, herself, is well confused with her beliefs at the moment, which was manifest when I addressed that simple fact to her. She's thoroughly lost and vulnerable, which supplies us with the perfect opportunity."  
  
J.C. Jefferson's own eyes glimmered with utter amusement along with much mischief at the revelation of the minister's growing incapabilities. However, that sensation soon transformed into sternness as he rested his forefinger and thumb against the temple of his head. "Excellent. Unfortunately, the inapt officers who volunteered to join our cause are nothing more than amateurs in this for their own gain. I had to... relieve one officer of his duties earlier today. The very one in fact who had managed to let the Une girl slip through security and escape. He failed to retrieve the documents on our eleven scientists, and it won't be long until the P.O. has their hands where they don't belong. I fear time has run out. Fortunately, we still have a strategy. Can I safely assume, my son, that you will take care of it?"  
  
Carl Jackson nodded enthusiatically, "Though, it will be a shame to damage such a beautiful, goddess-like creature, I can safely assure you, it will be taken care of. Tomorrow, after all, is the Vice Foriegn Minister's public speech with Colonial Ambassador Winner. It will be crowded, but the perfect set up to commence our operation, especially, despite the irony, when I will be in charge of the minister's safety." Carl messed with his left eyebrow, absent-mindedly pulling various strands of hair in a somewhat cocky habit.  
  
"Then its up to you, my son. I will send my people in at 1500 hours tomorrow, and it shall lead from there. Report here at 2200 hours if you succeed to begin the next step," J.C. Jefferson barked in a commanding voice before terminating the secure line.  
  
*~*  
  
Quatre clumsily stumbled down the long corridor of Preventer headquarters as he juggled a large, flimsy box that was topless and full of files in one hand while he carried a tray of take out in the other hand with a styrofoam cup in his mouth. He almost fumbled over as he tried to support the cardboard box with one knee. Once he reached an isolated, mechanical door, he turned to elbow in the security code to provide him entrance.  
  
Three solemn occupants hardly noticed his sudden intrusion as Quatre scrambled to the nearest table to relieve him of his restraints, mainly the testy box. Once free, he collapsed effortlessly into a chair as he wiped his forehead.  
  
"Heero, do you really think this is necessary?" Wufei flipped through the very documents Quatre had previously discarded upon the fold-out table. "Sally and I have been through every detail of these documents a dozen times over. All we recovered from the rebel faction's database was useless information of lab samples, experiments, and test results."  
  
"Hn."  
  
Quatre and Wufei glanced at Heero, who was typing away tirelessly, then looked at each other. "Hmph," Wufei smirked skeptically, releasing the papers back into the box in the process. Quatre starred back toward the persistent Heero Yuy with worry etched in his emerald eyes toward the unperturbed pilot. When Lady Une rejected Heero's assumptions of Carl Jackson, or really Andrew Morris Jefferson, due to the lack of evidence, Heero buried himself into developing a more advanced security system, despite the perfection of the previous one, and kept his eyes glued upon the recovered information on the situation. It didn't matter how irrelevant it appeared to the rest of them.  
  
Unfortunately, despite the many hours spent researching, they were no better off than Wufei and Sally were before they arrived. The matters continued to worsen as the sands of time relentlessly fell against them. Quatre knew Heero believed Relena was in grave danger, especially when she was under the watch of Carl Jackson, but they had no leads to back it up. Quatre also knew that the public speech at 2:00 tomorrow was what had Heero plastered upon the computer screen, inspecting the Vice Foriegn Minister's security layout for the following day.  
  
However, despite all of the precautions that the P.O. was unmistakably taking, Quatre strongly felt that if they were going to solve this mystery, they were going to need some more help and some kind of lead. Somehow, a disturbed gut feeling was trying to warn Quatre that something horrible was going to happen tomorrow, and he was sure Heero felt it too.  
  
*~*  
  
Small droplets of rain fell soundlessly in the night air against the large glass window and then trailed smoothly down the surface. Relena Darlian peeked up to awknowledge the unexpected shower. "That's funny... there wasn't a cloud for miles not even half an hour ago." Relena gave a bewildered look as she lightly tapped her pen against the tip of her nose in contemplation before attempting to return to reciting the speech before her. However, five minutes had barely passed when a soft thud was heard throughout the room signaling the dropping of the speech and Relena's defeat.  
  
No matter how hard she tried, she just couldn't keep her mind on the task at hand. Every little thing interrupted her train of thought, making her start all over again just to be interrupted yet again for the whole process to repeat itself. She slouched miserably upon a cushioned couch, which supplied no form of comfort to relieve her growing headache. This sudden shower wasn't the only odd thing that had been occurring around here. Dorothy Catalonia had not only not showed up this morning to the office, but had completely disappeared altogether, which quite frankly, baffled her.  
  
previously that day...  
  
Crowds of noisy people including uniformed preventers, ambassadors, and representatives from all around the Earth Sphere flooded the entirety of ESUN Central as a single, honey blonde politician manuevered around. With a small suitcase full of signed paperwork for vetoes, proposals, and bills, Relena Darlian claimed the last elevator for herself and was about to lean her head against the wall as she listened to the elevator doors close, but then caught. She opened her eyes to inspect the source of the problem and found her bodyguard, Carl Jackson, who was holding the doors open to squeeze through. Relena mentally shuddered as he moved in to stand beside her before embracing his presence with her political mask.  
  
"You know, Ms. Darlian, I can't protect you when you are trying, intentionally, to lose me after every corner," Carl patronized her with anything but an angry look.  
  
Relena choked back when she noticed the pure amusement that flickered across his eyes and then punched in her floor number to allow the doors to close once again. "I'm terribly sorry, Mr. Jackson, but I thought you were right behind me. I have too many important things to worry about to take the time to look back to confirm whether or not you can keep up."  
  
Carl smirked merrily, "Very intelligent, Ms. Darlian, but I am well aware of your love of ditching bodyguards to escape to a few minutes of freedom. Not that I blame you." Carl watched Relena's eyes move away from him toward the number displayed above the doors to indicate which floor they had reached.  
  
As the doors opened to Relena's floor, she looked back with a bewildered look, "I really don't have time for a lecture on what I do with my personal life. And the last time I checked, you had no say in it. So, if you will excuse me."  
  
"Well, last time I checked, I was your personal bodyguard, which means I am in charge of your life for the time being, which includes your personal life."  
  
The very fact numbed Relena to the core, and she found she couldn't exert any energy into her legs to move. There it was again, that claustrophobic feeling. That simple, overwhelming feeling always seemed to drown Relena when her life was being controlled by someone other than herself. Her eyes seemed to cloud over a second before she realized something was astray. "Where's Dorothy? She's never late." Relena turned abrubtly to Carl for some answers.  
  
Carl's eyes took on a sudden change from sole amusement to extreme gravity at the mention of Relena's personal assistant. "Miss Catalonia contacted me last night informing me that she was assigned to a classified mission by preventers and will be gone until further notice. That was all I was told, Ms. Darlian."  
  
back to the present...  
  
The soft thumping that had previously sounded outside the window had turned into a thunderous downpour. Relena found herself tapping her pen upon the tip of her nose once again in contemplation. She had mentally noted the sudden change in expression on Carl's face earlier that day and was immediately suspicious. Why didn't Dorothy contact her herself instead of Carl? She abhorred Carl's every presence and went out of her way just to avoid eye contact. The questions that ran through her mind plagued her like poison. 'It just doesn't make any sense!' Dorothy had promised Relena that she would help her with the case on the disappearances. Not only that, but Dorothy never participated in any preventer operation.  
  
Nothing made sense, and the more she thought about it, the more she felt Carl lied to her straight in the eye, which infuriated her. Relena glanced toward her small laptop that laid next to her on the couch. She pulled up a file which held a concensus of the rate of people disappearing in the last three years, which shockingly enough skyrocketed since the end of A.C. 195. What was even more baffling was the fact that the majority of those disappearances consisted mainly of children, particularly war-orphens, ranging from six years of age to thirteen and fourteen. It didn't seem like much of a significance at first, just downright disturbing, until she realized that the day that the rate had begun to skyrocket was the exact same day that the first doctor, Dr. Ruano-Saal had disappeared. Whether it truely held a magnitude or was nothing more than a coincidence remained egnimous to Relena.  
  
Frustrated, Relena walked toward the large panel glass to watch the streaks of lightning light the darkened world below creating a dangerous beauty across the sky. She knew it was dangerous to stand so close to a window during a thunderstorm, especially in one of the highest floors of the building. Yet, the nearness of such danger intrigued her mind, and made her feel more free than she could anywhere else. 'Heero.'  
  
*~*  
  
Intense prussian blue orbs suddenly jerked to a single window in the congested hotel room and starred blankly at the rigorous downpour that cleansed the world outside. 'Relena.'  
  
Several seconds passed in what seemed like an eternity before he returned to a vidcam infront of him that he had connected to his laptop. He hacked effortlessly into the preventer computer mainframe, entering whatever necessary codes were required to lock into the information he needed. He then leaned back to run his calloused hands through his untame locks of brown to massage his head from a persisting headache while he waited for the computer to process the connection. What was he thinking? How the heck was he going to follow through with the minor task he had assigned to himself to complete tonight.  
  
He quickly jerked forward when he caught sound of a dialing tone, a connection, and then a series of rings. His eyes hardened into a absent stare as the vidcam lit up signaling the line had been answered. His lips were instinctively pressed into a thin line as he watched a familiar cascade of platinum blonde hair and icy blue eyes fill the screen and return a baffled look back at him before returning the same absent stare that was being sent.  
  
"Heero Yuy."  
  
"Zeches."  
  
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AN: There's Chapter 7, finally! I hope you enjoyed it! The next chapter will be a little more action packed, but I don't want to give away the plot, but I will tell you, everything will come together with this next one...and I am planning on every character making an entrance in this next one, so hold on to your seats!  
  
Chibi Wufei: Yea right... you haven't even written half of the next chapter!  
  
Author: SHUSH YOU! Writing is an art that takes delicate precision and lots of time.  
  
Chibi Wufei: What's the complication? You pick up a pen and move your hand. Not like it takes serious brain power.  
  
Author: *eyes widen, then sighes* Well, excuse me, Mr. everything-you-can- do, I-can-do-better, but I am not so fortunate as you.  
  
Chibi Wufei: Denying the facts is a tremeduous sign of weakness.  
  
Author: *pulls out the dreaded pen and pushes chibi Wufei off the table and into the trash can with it* So is arrogance! 


	9. Holding My Last Breath

Too Lost to be Saved  
by: WolfCry17  
  
Disclaimer: As always, I do not own any of the gundam wing characters. I also don't own the song "Holding My Last Breath." That song rightly belongs to the group Evainesence.  
  
Revised AN: Hey guys, I am so sorry this isn't a chapter update, and it's not even much of a revision. I just couldn't stand how the song uploaded into the fanfiction file. I had it separated before, but unfortunately, the file uploaded to where you couldn't even recognize the song from the rest of the story from first glance. I am truely sorry! Thank you so much Bibliomaniac for pointing that out to me. I really appreciate it because I probably would have left it like that without realizing it!!! So now, I hope this revision will do, and don't worry, I am half way through the next chapter, so expect it to be up at the latest this Sunday night! YAY! Thanks so much to all who have reviewed my story thus far! I appreciate each and every review, and I will separately thank each one of you when I post my next chapter, because you all mean so much to me!!!!!!! Til next time! ;P  
  
Original AN: Well, it's been quite a while since I last updated. *ashamed look* Oops. Well, tennis has started up again, and school has been worse than ever, mostly due to an extremely irritable excuse of an English teacher! And my studio art teacher has been insisting that I complete my next piece, so I have been focusing on that as well. Not only that, but this chaper I found has been the hardest one for me to write. It's one of those major turning points in the story that's going to affect how the rest of the plot will turn out. So, yeah! This one frustratingly has taken me forever to complete. Grrrrrr..... But anyhow, I hope you enjoy it. It sure took me a long time and it is one of the longest I have wriiten, so maybe that makes up for the long wait. *wipes sweat from forehead and sighs*  
  
I also want to thank a few individuals who have been very supportive of my story! I really appreciate your reviews and support!  
  
Airen2: The most supportive reviewer! I want to thank you so much for everytime you have taken the time to review my story. I am really sad too that so few have reviewed, but the reviews I do have, I am very grateful for, especially yours! Thanks so much!!!  
  
Nubia: Thanks so much for also taking the time to review my story, and you are very welcome for the email update. I hope you will continue to read my story, because I really value your opinion!  
  
Joseph: I promise I will finish this story!!! I have vowed to finally finish a story, and I am so thrilled with this one, that I plan to fulfill that vow! Thank you so much for your commentary!  
  
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Chapter 8 ~ Holding My Last Breath  
  
Oct. 24, The day of the public speech 800 hours, Preventer HQ...  
  
Smooth, white hands grasped a crisp report detailing the extent of preventer security at the public speech with Vice Foreign Minister Relena Darlian and Ambassador Quatre Raberba Winner, who will both inform the public of the results of the Earth Sphere Seven-Day Conference Trial. Golden brown eyes scanned the lines through short brown bangs, reviewing the material to her memory.  
  
Lady Une glanced up to the old grandfather clock for the fifteenth time that morning. '8:01... he's late.' Exasperated, the Chief Preventer turned in her chair to focus her attention upon the bustling world below through the large window behind her elegant desk. It was a beautiful, clear day, especially compared to the downpour of the previous night. Yet, Lady Une couldn't help, but get the strangest feeling as if it was just the calm before an unbreathable storm. Her intuition was screaming in alarm, trying to warn her that something was terribly wrong. It hadn't become apparent to her until Heero Yuy approached her with the discovery of Carl Jackson's counterfeit profile. Despite the alias, which was nothing but suspicious, there was nothing on his real record, so there was nothing Lady Une could act upon. She relunctantly dismissed Heero's charge even though her conscience was telling her to still be cautious. That simple warning was making her all the more nervous.  
  
The soft click of her office door opening jerked Lady Une out of her reverie. "You're late." Lady Une smiled knowingly when silence welcomed her, and she turned to look upon her guest. "Heero Yuy, I called you in this morning to discuss the security measure proposal you sent me via email last night. Very impressive!" Lady Une glanced down upon the proposal in her hands, before slightly chuckling to herself, "Heero, you never wanted to have anything to do with the preventers, always preferring to work alone. You can't just simply email me such a sophisticated operation without being a preventer yourself."  
  
Dark prussian eyes set upon the Chief Preventer with nothing set in but pure, cold-blood determinaton. Then, much to Lady Une's surprise, his upper lip lifted ever so slightly into a smirk. "What? Is there a procedure one must go through just to send in a proposal? You are the Chief in Commander of the Preventer Organization, the most powerful, legal military academy in the Earth's Sphere, and you can accept or reject any proposal on your desk, despite who it originated from, can you not?"  
  
"And you believe that being a former gundam pilot qualifies you enough for me to even consider accepting your proposal?" She eyed Heero for a few seconds longer as he stood unfazed by her idle interrogation. He, as well as all of the gundam pilots, and their moral sense as soldiers aways fascinated her to an extent. She had tried desperately to gain the alliance of all five pilots for several years now, but much to expectation, most of the gundam pilots barely complied with her plea, especially the one that stood before her now. At the end of the Mariemaya coup d'etat, Sally Po had somehow managed to convince the Shenlong pilot, Wufei Chang, to join as a full time preventer. Now, the pair made the best team within the organization and had already out-ranked every senior officer, besides herself.  
  
Duo, Quatre, and Trowa agreed to work part-time as preventer agents whenever they were most needed, but all three had their own lives to lead now in this new peaceful world. Duo, of course, found his way back into the Sweeper Organization that he was a part of before he claimed the role of "The Great Destroyer." Trowa returned to the last of his family, a sister by the name of Catherine Bloom, and a traveling circus. 'Somehow,' Lady Une thought, 'Trowa just belongs with a circus.' Quatre inherited his father's title in the political arena and became one of Relena Darlian's strongest supporters. He and Relena now have unknowingly claimed the roles of the late Heero Yuy and King Peacecraft before the eve wars. 'Hopefully, their fates will not mirror those of the past for everybody's sake.'  
  
Heero, however, remained as mysterious as the day Lady Une met him, and he followed no rules outside of his own. "Alright Heero. I'm not one to break my own requirements just for someone else's satisfaction, however, I would rather commit unspeakable suicide than to decline your proposal and let something happen to our own Ambassador of Foriegn Affairs."  
  
Heero nodded with confirmation before turning to leave, but as he took a step towards the door, the commander's voice filled his ears once more.  
  
"I do have one concern with your measures, Heero. Will you not be counting yourself as part of this measure? I would think you, of all people, would want to be there to make sure everything is carried out properly." Lady Une tilted her head questioningly.  
  
Heero turned his head with his back still facing Lady Une with his usual monotone mask. "I have to take care of something." Without another word or enough time for the commander to respond, Heero left hurriedly with a conflicted emotion now present within his eyes.  
  
*~*  
  
A strange shock chilled Relena to the bone as it ran down her spine. Her eyes fluttered open immediately after and anxiously searched her surroundings through the tinted windows of her limonsine just to find passing scenery and a few pedestrians of the Sanq Kingdom. Odd. For some reason for the past several days, Relena was experiencing sudden urges to look around and shout his name. 'Heero.' Relena's ceralean eyes furrowed gravely as she shifted to her original position. Everytime that feeling came over her, she felt he was near, as if it was a sixth sense. 'What a thought!' She scrunched her fine features up and shook her head trying to convince herself to focus on remembering her speech that she failed to thoroughly recite the night before. However, as she scanned through the words in her ceaselessly tired mind, the unwanted feeling rushed down her back again, distracting her. Something was wrong. Something horrible is going to happen, but what?  
  
"You seem somewhat pre-occupied this morning, Miss Darlian," a voice beside Relena sounded.  
  
"Perhaps," Relena responded to her bodyguard who wasn't driving the limonsine this time.  
  
Her old butler, Peygan, wanted to serve the young princess as long as possible because of his loyalty to King Peacecraft. Not only that, but he didn't trust Carl to be alone with Relena, now that Dorothy had gone missing. Carl had told them that she had been assigned to some classified mission for the preventers, but like Relena, he saw no truth in that.  
  
Soon another unbearable silence encompassed the occupants within the car as they slowly made their way to ESUN Central.  
  
*~*  
  
A strong gust of wind blew wildly through long brown strands of hair as Heero hastally pressed the gas petal of the green Yamaha Eagle motorcycle with Quatre on a black versian speeding closely behind. An endless line of oak trees flashed quickly by creating a green blur in Quatre's peripherial view. Emerald eyes darkened with worry, hardened somewhat as Quatre lost himself in a deep abyss of thoughts. The blinding sun, which was slowly rising to its highest point in the sky, burned his eyes. Quatre assumed it was around nine o'clock in the morning according to its low position. Not a cloud in sight. It was the most serene day he had ever seen, the most perfect day for something to go terribly wrong.  
  
Quatre tenaciously shook his head attempting to erase the bad omen away. He regained concentration of the road before him as his mind drifted back to why he was on this motorcycle.  
  
*flashback*  
  
Quatre watched with unblinking eyes as steaming hot liquid poured from a simple coffee kettle into his cup until something more interesting caught his sight. He glanced up to find an ever-determined Heero walking fiercely in long strides with apparently one thing in mind. Concerned, Quatre set his cup down to study Heero's movements as Heero dodged several bystanders to reach a staircase that led down to the garage. 'Where is he going?'  
  
Entirely forgetting about the now luke warm coffee, he decided to follow Heero down to the garage.  
  
A well-manicured redhead glanced up to catch Quatre, "Uh, sir... sir, you left your drink here. Sir, excuse me, are you listening to me?"  
  
Quatre either deliberately tuned out the irritating woman or he was just too concentrated on finding Heero to acknowledge her existence. Either way, he quickened his pace considerably to catch Heero before he lost him.  
  
"SIR, don't you dare leave and expect me to clean up after you!" The woman seethed through her teeth angrily, especially when she realized the man in question had somehow escaped from her line of sight.  
  
*~*  
  
Wispy, blonde bangs whipped around Quatre's porcelian face as he hurriedly jumped down a set of stairs before turning to repeat the process on the next set. He finally reached an "employee only" set of double doors that led outside to the garage, where every auto vehicle that the preventers owned resided.  
  
Breathing heavily with sweat soaking his brow, Quatre scanned the over-sized garage that was full of hundreds of limonsines, jeeps, the standard preventer jaguar, and different styles of motorcycles lined up all along the walls. Everything was in a deep metallic black. He caught some movement near the bikes toward the end of one side and found Heero pulling out the only green one in the entire garage.  
  
"Where are you going? And with that bike? It looks like it belongs to a superior officer."  
  
Heero didn't glance up, much less speak a word as he entered a combination of numbers to start the motorcycle. As it reeled to life, Heero finally looked up to glare deathly at Quatre. "It's my bike."  
  
Taken aback, his eyes wide, Quatre stepped out of Heero's way, "What is it doing here at Preventer Headquarters?"  
  
"I keep it here whenever I do clean up work for the incompetents in the Preventer Organization. Only Lady Une and I have the access codes to unlock it. Now, I need to go."  
  
Quatre watched as Heero's prussian eyes grew darker with the same ferocity and intensity that radiated from him since the first day Quatre met him. The perfect soldier, the heart of outer space. Quatre then smirked slightly and fought the urge to chuckle like a giddy schoolboy when he noticed a familiar golden glow that surrounded Heero the first day he encountered the zero system. That glow only shined for one special person, the soul of earth. "Where are you going, Heero? Are you forgetting about the Vice Foriegn Minister's speech?"  
  
Heero hesitated with his movements for the briefest of seconds. If someone didn't know him well enough, they would never have noticed; however, Quatre noticed. "I remember. I have gone over the security measures with Wufei three times over. He and Lady Une can take care of it. Besides, I have some pest control to take care of."  
  
"You mean, Carl Jackson, or really, Andrew Morris Jefferson..." Quatre thought for a second, "I'm coming with you."  
  
Heero's head jerked up immediately, "No, you stay here for that speech. You represent the colonies, and I need you there to protect the Vice Foriegn Minister."  
  
Quatre furrowed his eyes in retaliation, "I'm coming Heero, whether you like it or not. Wufei can handle Miss Relena's protection; you said so yourself." Quatre's eyes then temporarily clouded over. "Besides... Dorothy's missing," he finally breathed out in a hushed whisper.  
  
Heero merely caught himself in a starring contest with the most strategic former gundam pilot. After the longest time, Heero's eyes suddenly softened in understandment, and he slowly nodded to grant Quatre's request.  
  
*end flashback*  
  
Before Quatre knew it, he and Heero had stopped in front of the Peacecraft Mansion. 'Dorothy,' he closed his eyes as he turned the engine off, 'please, let me help you.' He quickly glanced at his digital watch that read 9:45 as he followed Heero absentmindedly. A single brow lifted up when Quatre finally glanced up to find Heero crouched over in some nearby bushes, apparently looking for something. "Uh, Heero, what are you doing? I maybe a little old-fashioned, but I think the doorbell is still next to the door."  
  
Growling quietly when a few thorns found their way to Heero's neck, Heero proceeded to examine the bricks of the house that the rose bushes protectively guarded. "Peygan is escourting Relena to the Parliament buildings right now, and her few housekeepers are gone for the week, so nobody's inside to answer said doorbell. Relena usually leaves a spare key behind a loose brick just in case." Heero smirked when he found the one brick that was loose from the dried cement on all sides.  
  
Quatre sweatdropped and almost fell over when Heero emerged from the rose bushes with the spare key. "I don't even want to know how you know about that."  
  
Heero sent his blonde comrade a bewildered look as he snapped the key into the lock to release the door from its restraints. "Relena told me." The door slowly creaked open allowing the soft wind to enter and caress the different plants inside. "Carl's room is down this wing."  
  
*~*  
  
1400 hours, ESUN Central City  
  
An ocean of people and every newstation within a several hundred mile radius filtered into the wide street in front of ESUN Central's Parliament buildings. Dark ceralean eyes bored through a high window upon the collecting faces of the crowd below. Nauseous and dizzy from exhaustion, Relena gripped the edges of the table beside her to help support her body upright, but with little success. Her knees were growing weaker with every passing second, and deep down, she knew it was because something wasn't quite right. Not to mention Dorothy's peculiar disappearance and the sudden announcement from Lady Une that Ambassador Quatre Winner mysteriously took off earlier this morning wasn't helping Relena's disoriented state. 'What's wrong with you, Relena? Nothing is going to happen.' Somehow this little chant of hers wasn't easing her nervousness.  
  
"You look exhausted, your majesty."  
  
Relena spun around instantly as an upsurge of her heart rate throbbed beneath her breast and into her ears at the sudden voice. The sudden change in position made Relena dizzier than before, and it took a few seconds for her vision to focus onto the figure now in her presence. "Lady Une, you frightened me."  
  
"I am surprised you were concious enough to even hear me," Lady Une smiled as she leaned her frame against the wall near a large bookcase. She then raised an eyebrow as if she was expecting something.  
  
Relena countered Lady Une's apparent challenge by raising her own right eyebrow with defiance. "I am perfectly fine. What are you talking about?" She suddenly bit her lip as she turned back toward the bustling street below. "I guess I am just a little concerned for Dorothy, that's all." 'A little? That's an understatement!' She sighed lightly as she felt Lady Une walk up beside her and gaze upon the citizens of ESUN. "By the way, Lady Une, I would appreciate it if you would cease with the 'your majesty' part. I am no longer a princess."  
  
Lady Une didn't even glance toward Relena, but kept her eyes staring out the window. "No matter how long you deny it, you and your brother still carry royal blood in your veins, despite the fact that you two refuse to inherit the kingdom of Sanq."  
  
Relena's eyes merely furrowed at Lady Une's truth and at the mention of her brother in that truth.  
  
*~*  
  
Small patches of dust filled the air, causing Quatre to sneeze abrubtly as the particles collected in his nose. He placed the offending book that caused the dust to disperse in the air back on the bookshelf. Quatre turned to find Heero searching every inch of Carl Jackson's room for anything that could help reinforce Heero's assumption about the bodyguard. Unfortunately, it appeared that Carl had completely cleansed the room of all his belongings that very morning, much to Heero's frustration.  
  
It wasn't helping Quatre's attitude either. He was hopelessly longing to find something that would lead to the truth behind Dorothy's disappearance, but his efforts seemed pointless. His knees buckled just then allowing him to slide to the floor in exasperation.  
  
Heero peeked up to find Quatre leaning his head against the wall in an attempt to relax his nerves. Prussian eyes observed this in understandment before glancing back to Carl's empty room.  
  
Quatre was ready to let an abyss of darkness overtake him when an irritating thumping invaded his head. At first, he figured it was just the prior symptoms of an incoming headache, but soon realized it was something beyond the bounds of his mind. The wall was vibrating! His eyes shot open suspiciously and he tilted his head to listen to the sounds more closely. Quatre's breath caught as his eyes widened. "Heero, quick! There's something behind this wall."  
  
Heero nodded and soon found himself feeling every inch of the wall with Quatre, "You're right. The mansion has hundreds of secret compartments and passageways for all sorts of things. I should have thought of it earlier." Heero mentally scolded himself for wasting so much valuable time rechecking every place in Carl's room three times over instead of remembering the secret compartment that lay next to Carl's room.  
  
Quatre searched with as much effort as he could muster to find the entrance to the other side of the wall. In his efforts, he accidentally knocked into a light fixture on the wall, which caused the bookcase to suddenly move outward. Both Quatre and Heero backed up caustiously as the secrets behind that bookcase was revealed to them.  
  
As they slowly rounded the bookcase to look inside, a flash of golden yellow flooded their eyes and fell onto the floor. Shocked, Quatre's eyes widened with tears as he cried out, "Dorothy!" She was bound tightly by rope around her wrists and ankles and her mouth was covered by thick cloth clenched between her teeth. Quatre rushed to her side to gently turn her over and look into her crystal baby blue orbs, which widened upon looking into Quatre's own emerald ones, as Heero helped cut the rope to release her before investigating the rest of the compartment. As he did so, Quatre's and Dorothy's eyes never left one another's, and Quatre softly untied the cloth behind her head.  
  
"Q...Quatre," Dorothy choked out with surprise as she felt his hands linger in her long blonde locks. Her eyes closed as his gentle caress soothed her, and she couldn't believe his touch was real, but it was. As if reading her mind, he pulled her weak body against his to assure her he was real as his arms found their way around her tiny, yet muscular, form. Against her will that always warned to stay away from this peace-loving prince of the desert, she felt herself drowning into his surprisingly strong embrace. The boy she always accused as the weakest of the gundam pilots felt so powerful to her now, even stronger than she ever was.  
  
In the same respect, Quatre found his proud angel of war surprisingly fragile beneath his arms. He knew deep down she was always kinder than he could ever be, and that thought ignited a strange, overwhelming fire beneath his chest. He felt so alive just now that he refused to loosen his tight grasp of her, and she showed no struggle in an attempt to get away from him.  
  
Heero stumbled out of the compartment even more frusterated than before when he found nothing left in it except a few dents in the wall due to Dorothy's insistent knocking, obviously to grab someone's attention. He found Dorothy and Quatre on the floor still wrapped around each other and an unfamiliar envious wave blew over Heero. A distinct vision of Relena cuddled in his arms like that entered his mind without permission, and he found himself fighting it off to no avail. His thoughts, instead, deepened the vision to even more forbidden thoughts.  
  
He shook the images away with much irritation, but yet with much reluctance as well. "I couldn't find anything else in there. I'm afraid there's nothing here to give us any kind of clue to Carl Jackson." Heero's fists tightened.  
  
Dorothy's eyes shot open suddenly at Heero's statement and for the first time, struggled out of Quatre's grasp. With much hesitation, she felt Quatre let go of her. "Carl Jackson! Relena!"  
  
Heero's ears perked toward Dorothy when she spoke the names. "What? Do you know something?"  
  
Dorothy's head nodded to Heero's question, but she never looked into his face. Instead she could only stare at Quatre. "Relena... she's... she's in trouble. He's planning to... he has all her medical files and a dozen or so viles of some kind of liquid-like substance! The public meeting today... he's planning to... we must save her!"  
  
"He's planning to what? You're not making any sense!" Quatre shook her slightly in an attempt to shake the answer out of her, but it was enough for Heero. Before Quatre looked up, Heero sprinted out of the room in a flash, but Quatre didn't have to look up, he already knew Heero was gone with one thing on his mind: to get to Relena.  
  
*~*  
  
That uneasy feeling never left Relena's thoughts, and now she stood before a huge crowd anticipating the next hour or so of her announcement, but yet she found no urge to breath a single word out. She looked over the hundreds of faces, and she felt each one standing over her in judgement, watching her every movement, especially the tabloid writers. Even at her first speech in front of such large numbers, she never felt so lightheaded, so dizzy, and so scared. 'Heero.'  
  
---------------------------------------  
  
Hold on to me love  
  
You know I can't stay long  
  
All I wanted to say was  
  
I love you and I'm not afraid  
  
---------------------------------------  
  
Gathering all of her strength, she refused to give in and stepped up to the podium to grasp the microphone between her delicate, yet shaky, fingers. She found her friends amongst the crowd, patrolling the area, and a new-found strength encompassed her as she began to speak.  
  
"I was afraid she was going to freeze for the first time." Sally flicked a tightly-bound braid off her shoulder as she nudged the ever- serious Wufei Chang from his perched position over the mass of people. Sally just smiled at his lack of response, much less humor, as she watched him continue to scan the crowd to make sure every preventer agent was in place and that everything was in order.  
  
-----------------------------------------  
  
Can you hear me?  
  
Can you feel me in your arms  
  
Holding my last breath?  
  
-----------------------------------------  
  
Relena's grip tightened as she felt another dizzy spell wash over her and a vision of Heero's penetrating eyes reached her mind. She inspected every inch of the crowd in a wild daze to find those eyes again, but quickly excused it as an illusion.  
  
She kept catching Carl Jackson staring down at her instead of the area, and she couldn't decipher his looks as lustful or protective. Not that it mattered, because either way, it bothered her immensely. She was having trouble concentrating as it was with her dizzy spells and overactive imagination without him having to add to it.  
  
She then suddenly felt his gaze shift and nodd at something or someone, and that's when she saw it. She followed Carl's gaze slowly as time for her seemed to slow down almost to a stop and caught a glimse of a distant red beam aiming at nothing in particular. Her words hesitated in the same instant as she found more surrounding the entire area and she lost her breath as thoughts raced through her mind. All she could hear was her heart throbbing as adrenaline rushed to her head. That explains the bad omen that just would not leave her.  
  
--------------------------------------  
  
Safe inside myself  
  
Are all my thoughts of you?  
  
Sweet rapture and life  
  
It ends here tonight.  
  
---------------------------------------  
  
A single shot just then rang abnormally loud in Relena's ears as her eyes widened. More shots rang out after the initial, causing a deep chaos to erupt amongst the crowd as people scattered screaming as the preventers tried to locate the source of the shots. Suddenly, Relena felt her arm jerked sideways as Carl ran her off the stage to avoid the line of fire.  
  
Sally, Wufei, and Lady Une found themselves mixed up with the chaos of it all as they tried desperately to locate the source of fire as well as one nerve-racked politician. "Where did they come from? The entire perimeter was ordered to be checked every half-hour!" Wufei jerked at the collar of a subordinate preventer who cringed under Wufei's angered sneer. As more bullets sliced through the air toward their direction, he threw the incorruptive preventer down to take cover.  
  
Sally and Lady Une quickly dashed behind the nearest vehicle for cover while reloading their guns. They both jumped suddenly shocked by movement of the car when bullets shot out the tires on one side. "Shit!" Sally seethed through her teeth. "Where's Vice Foreign Minister Darlian?"  
  
Lady Une rose to fire another round, but found it was a complete waste of bullets. "There's nothing more exhilerating than fighting blind." Lady Une slammed a fist into the vehicle protecting them and just as soon regretted it when a piece of glass pierced her skin. "Miss Relena is with Jackson being taken to safety." 'I hope,' Lady Une mentally added.  
  
At one point amongst the shooting and chaotic screams, Wufei found his way to the two women, all of them lacking any more bullets. "Weaklings! They hide on the rooftops instead of challenging me face-off!" It was nothing more than a rambling comment to cover his anger of running out of firearm without hitting a single target.  
  
------------------------------------------  
  
I'll miss the winter  
  
A world of fragile things  
  
Look for me in the white forest  
  
Hiding in a hollow tree.  
  
------------------------------------------  
  
Heavy breathing crippled Relena's running pace, and with each step, she lost more valuable air. She felt her wrist swell from Carl's tight grip as he directed her away from the parliament buildings and into a secluded alleyway, attempting to dodge every piece of debris possible. Relena didn't like it at all. The alleyway provided little cover, and she was only guarded by her untrustworthy bodyguard. 'How reassuring!' At that thought, Relena's eyes hardened, and she threw her entire body backward to force Carl's iron grip to release her.  
  
Carl turned abrubtly in surprise toward the motionless Relena. "We mustn't stop here."  
  
"Why?" Relena challenged through gritted teeth, "Isn't this far enough for you to complete your task, away from the entire preventer agent squad?" Her eyes stared at him with a bitter hardness, a deathly glare she had picked up from an old friend.  
  
A dumbfounded look crossed Carl's features in protest, "What's that supposed to mean?" He didn't like the sound of that and readied his hand near his pocket  
  
Relena's glare refused to soften, but only deepen, when Carl acted innocent. "You know exactly what I mean Carl Jackson. I see it in your sinister eyes as clear as day. You knew about the attack, didn't you? I saw you look toward several snipers and only when you nodded your head did they start their assault, so don't you dare play stupid with me."  
  
--------------------------------------  
  
I know you hear me  
  
I can taste it in your arms  
  
Holding my last breath  
  
Safe inside myself  
  
Are all my thoughts of you?  
  
--------------------------------------  
  
Lady Une slammed her radio transmitter when she recieved news that over two dozen agents were dead and the rest were now completely unarmed. Her fist clenched and shook answerless, "We need help!"  
  
Sally's eyes furrowed in defeat. This was beyond ridiculous. How could the enemy be so precise? The security measures were passed just this morning, so there is no possible way they could have known how to counter it... unless... there was a leak, someone on the inside relaying information. Suddely, a strange, peculiar sound distanced itself from the others and drew Sally out of her reverie. "Listen... what's that? It sounds like a new prototype for a motorcycle."  
  
Wufei sneered angrily, "They have reinforcements! No matter. At least this time I can face them on the ground." Wufei started to rise but was stopped just as quickly.  
  
"They are on a machine travelling 60 miles per hour, and you're on your feet. There's no way you are going!" Sally protested.  
  
"Stop patronizing me, onna!"  
  
Lady Une's eyes widened as she threw her arm in front of the squabbling preventer agents. "Wait! I know that bike. It's Heero!"  
  
Wufei and Sally stopped arguing just in time to catch Heero racing off a ledge, excessively speeding into the air as sparks flew from his gun when a full round of bullets were launched into the air, taking down five men. The men fell limp from their perches as Heero's bike made contact with the ground again, skidding sideways several feet until it was rendered useless.  
  
--------------------------------  
  
Sweet rapture and life  
  
It ends here tonight.  
  
--------------------------------  
  
Determined prussian eyes found the three preventer agents crowding behind a car and raced toward them. "Where's Relena?" He thrusted the question immediately into their ears as he thrusted more weapons and more shots into their possession.  
  
"She's with Jackson. He's taking her somewhere safe."  
  
Heero's eyes ignited with fire and venom toward the name. "Safe!" He surged for Lady Une's collar and pushed her threateningly against the car "How is she safe with Jackson. Don't you see, this entire attack was nothing but a diversion to stray your eyes away from Jackson and Relena?" Heero's uncharacteristic temper shocked them all, and he slowly released Lady Une from his death grip apologetically. Grumbling, Heero sprinted away searching the frantic crowd, face by face, until a loud scream from about a half mile away filled Heero's ears. Without a second's thought, he sprinted in the direction.  
  
------------------------------------------------------  
  
Closing your eyes  
  
You pray your dreams will leave you here  
  
But still you wake and know the truth  
  
No one's there.  
  
-----------------------------------------------------  
  
The last thing Relena remembered was accusing Carl of having connections with the enemy, and the next second, she was pinned nearly breathless against the wall with Carl's large hand surrounding her throat. She struggled, kicked, punched, shoved, did anything, but couldn't break free. "Let me go!"  
  
Carl merely smirked at her fiestiness, which fed his increasing lust for her. He wanted to take her right then and there, and would have too, if he didn't have a job to do. He reached into his pocket to grasp a shiny silver shot filled with a clear liquid of some sort.  
  
Relena fought desperately as she eyed the tiny medical device. How she hated shots, but at this point, the needle was the least of her concern. As the liquid swirled around the translucent tube, all of her research of the missing bio doctors flashed through her mind, and in that instant, every piece of the puzzle connected masterly.  
  
She managed to raise her knee and thrust it deftly aimed between his legs. As Carl fell to the ground in immense pain, Relena took the chance to make a run for it, but only found herself falling to the ground when Carl grabbed her ankle. She turned over trying to kick his hands away, but he became more persistent each second.  
  
"Bitch! You are not getting away this time. Vice Foriegn Minister Darlian!" As time slowed once more, he took the needle and jammed it roughly into her leg, causing Relena to scream in pain, as the fluid made its entry into her pale, fragile body.  
  
Tears streamed down Relena's eyes endlessly, and she thrusted the remainder of her energy into throwing her spiked heel across his face. The hard blow appeared to have knocked Carl unconcious. Dizzy and lightheaded, Relena stumbled to her feet and half ran, half limped further and further from Carl. She had to get out of there. She needed to get somewhere isolated, somewhere safe, where she could cry with no one watching. 'Heero, you promised to always be there."  
  
---------------------------------------------------------  
  
Say goodnight, don't be afraid  
  
Calling me, holding me, as you fade to black.  
  
---------------------------------------------------------  
  
Colors were beginning to fade as Relena's eyesight started to fail her. It had to be due to that needle. What was that stuff? It was making her whole body feel foreign to her. Clouded shapes replaced buildings, streets, and signs. Her entire line of perception was completely lost, everything was out of proportion, and cold. Sudden gusts of wind plagued her body with chills to an abnormally low temperature. she shivered slightly, but forced herself to keep moving, to keep trying.  
  
She finally rounded the corner to exit from that fatal alleyway and into the blurry brightness of the sun, at least she thought it was the sun. Then her breathing stopped as she tried to squint her eyes to improve her vision. She saw a lone figure,a strangely familiar silhoutte, that was approaching her at a rapid pace, yet she was unafraid. With all five senses nearly shot, Relena found herself solely relying on a sixth sense, the one that gave her hope in her darkesy hours. Her mind told her it was safe now, that everything was alright, and that's when she knew. "H...Heero!" 'He came back, he came back to her!"  
  
Heero's heart raced at an enormous rate as foriegn emotions spun aimlessly ad frantically through his mind. He saw her. He saw her stumble helplessly out of an alleyway and then he heard his name. She was alive and breathing before his eyes and relief washed all worry away, temporarily anyway. "Relena." His pace quickened. He had to get to her.  
  
Upon seeing his figure and hearing his husky voice, a new surge of energy aroused her to run as fast as her feet could carry her towards him. Bruised and weak, but only a few feet away, she lunged as far as she could towards him. "Oh gawd, Heero!"  
  
Heero caught Relena in a second, swinging her fragile body around his. He held her tight, but gently, within his arms as his knees buckled, and he slowing fell to the ground with Relena gripping his shirt as if he was her last pillar. He felt her weak body press against his and her tears wetten his shirt. "Shh... Relena, its okay now, I'm not going to let anything else happen to you, I promise."  
  
"I'm so cold... I'm so glad you're here... Heero... I thought... I am so sorry." Relena muttered senselessly into his shirt as she fell into an abyss of darkness. Everything was fading to black, but she welcomed it now that she was in the safest place she could ever be. Suddenly, all thought left her.  
  
Prussian eyes opened wide when he felt Relena's body go limp beneath his arms. "Relena--"  
  
----------------------------------------------------  
  
(Say goodnight) Holding my last breath  
  
(Don't be afraid) Safe inside myself  
  
(Holding me) Are my thoughts of you  
  
Sweet rapture and life  
  
It ends here tonight.  
  
-----------------------------------------------------  
  
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AN: Well, I sure hope you enjoyed this pivotal chapter. Gosh, I am evil, what a place to stop. Please don't throw tomatoes or other foreign objects toward me, please. *ducks* However, I have been planning this cliffhanger for a while and just couldn't resist. I am not sure if the song was suitable, much less necessary, but I was listening to my evainsence cd several weeks ago and thought it would give the chapter more of a mood, a suspenseful, tear-jerking mood. Well, it sounded like a good idea at the time, now I am not so sure.  
  
Good news though! Although, I haven't started the next chapter, I do have it all planned out in my head. Next time, the entire gang will back together after several years of being separated. Now that I have this pivotal chappy out of the way now, I can start putting in more humor and lovey dovey stuff. So please continue to read and review. I really appreciate every comment!!!!! 


	10. Come Back to Me

Too Lost to be Saved  
by: WolfCry17  
  
Disclaimer: Well, it's obvious I don't own Gundam Wing, or I would making readers pay to read my work and living a life of luxury. Clearly, this is not the case. sniffsniff  
  
AN: Hi everybody! Again, sorry for the problem with the previous chapter!!! But, I uploaded my next chapter...YAY! I know there hasn't been much Heero X Relena moments in my previous chapters, but from now on, there should be plenty and plenty of great moments, I hope! I can't even tell you how hard this story has been to write without trying to rush through it just to get to the juicy parts. I have nearly torn my hair out! heehee! But neway!  
  
I want to thank everyone who has taken the time to review my story! I really appreciate your thoughts so much! And really, if anybody has any suggestions or tips, shoot even flames, I welcome all! I like flames just because they make me laugh! But they also help me sometimes, well, everything helps, but if there is anything, please, don't hesistate!  
  
NafX: Thanks you so much for reviewing, and I know I am cruel! Truthfully, I like to be cruel when it comes to cliffhangers, really! HeeHee! But, here's the next bit, so I hope you enjoy it! Thanks again!  
  
sylsch: Thank you very much! I am glad you like my fic, and you'll have to read on to find out what happens to Relena!  
  
Airen2: THANKS!!!! Thank you so much Airen2... when I read you last review, you really made my day... I was doing flips in the air! Not really. But, if I could... no, I don't think I would do it then either. Talk about back pain!!! yuck! It still made my day, and I started writing the next chapter write then and there! HEE HEE! Neway, thank you so much, as always, I appreciate everytime you review! And I hope you like this next chappy, the one you were checking fanfiction everyday for! ;P (I LUV YA!) ;P  
  
Melodi Moon: Yes, Melodi Moon, it was a song by Evainescense, and I don't blame you at all for asking, since it uploaded kind of weird last time, but hopefully the revision helped! I am glad you liked it, I was really hoping it would set the mood. Thanks so much for reviewing, I really appreciate it!  
  
raigne: I know how much everyone hates cliffhangers, but they're just so much FUN!!! Sorry! I am glad you enjoyed it, and I appreciate you taking the time to review my fanfic. I also love Evaniescence! It's my fav. group! And sorry, but you'll have to read to find out what happens to Relena. I never give away any clues to what's gonna happen! Thanks!!!  
  
Psycho Kitty: I am so glad to see you back! I was afraid I lost your interest! I am so glad you are enjoying it, and more importantly, thank you so much for reviewing!!! I hope you continue to enjoy it!  
  
ItakoDream: LOL! Thank you so much for reviewing my story! I really appreciate it! I hope you enjoy my next chapter!  
  
Bibliomaniac: Thank you so much for telling me that the song lyrics were messed up in the previous chapter! I really appreciated that....ALOT! I fixed them as soon as I recieved your review, so I hope they're a little more presentable now! Also, thank you very much for reviewing my story! And your right, after 8 long chapters, you all deserve what I have promised all along! Lots of HXR moments! So please cont. reading, please!  
  
Thank you everybody for taking the time to review! I really appreciate it, LOTS!!!! Sometimes, just your reviews give me inspiration to write more, and inspiration comes rarely. So, I hope you all continue to anjoy this!  
  
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Chapter 9 Aftermath  
  
"And the latest breaking news, we have just been informed, is an unexpected rebel attack on the Seven-Day Trial Public Announcement in ESUN Central City with the top officials present, including Vice Foriegn Minister Darlian. Let's take this to Tracy Austin who is presently on ground zero witnessing the aftermath. Tracy, it appears that the unknown rebel faction has stopped..."  
  
"...Yes, Judy, the rebel faction does indeed appear to have ceased the shooting and escaped. According to the P.O., it was reported that snipers, strategically located, started the assault at 1430 hours or 2:30 p.m. this afternoon with no particular targets in mind, but more to cause a stir. If you look behind me, they have succeeded in at least that. Numerous innocents are wounded and the total collatoral damage was reportedly high since 4:00 p.m. We have also just recieved confirmation that all the ESUN officials are secure including the Vice Foreign Minister, but the Vice Foriegn Minister does appear to be wounded, the state of which has yet to be determined. All that is known is the minister was lifted by a helicopter to b transported to the nearest metropolitan hospital and--"  
  
Five wordlessly-shocked pairs of eyes stared dumbfoundedly toward the shuttle screen unable to move or breath a word. Despite further report from the Inter-Spacial Newstation, all in the cabin lay eerfully silent as if the entire universe was mute.  
  
Suddenly, the screen blacked out as the remote control was hurled into the cabin wall with a loud thud. With tightly-clenched fists, Duo grumbled under his breath. "We were too late! The enemy got to O-jousan before we could warn the others about the information we risked our necks to find." In haste, Duo sprinted out the cabin door like fire.  
  
"Is there nothing else we can do now?" Hilde held her hand near her mouth in a nervous habit to suppress unwanted sobs as tiny drops of wetness threatened to escape the confinement of her eyes. She had only met Relena Darlian once, but it was enough to convince her of the sincerity that radiated from her eyes. Relena held a frightless spirit, which didn't surprise Hilde in the least bit once she met the taunting Heero Yuy for the first time.  
  
A tiny, ivory hand clasped the tiny locket dangling gracefully from Middie Une's long neck as wavy locks of blonde gathered along her neck line. She sat next to a stoic Trowa and a beautiful woman whom she learned to be his elder sister Catherine. Somehow, amongst the mayhem, Middie felt like she belonged beside Trowa and his friends, not just because she held a world of knowledge that they desperately needed, but because for once in her life, she felt she was doing the right thing surrounded by the right people. Shaking herself out of her surreal reverie, Middie unclasped her necklace and slowly made her way to thetearful german girl. "I think there is still time, Hilde. We can still save her and the fate of the Earth Sphere with this."  
  
Hilde glanced up to catch Middie's reassuring emerald orbs and toward the silver locket that dangled from Middie's fingers, that tiny locket that held a smaller microchip that held a vague key. Hilde slightly nodded. Her eyes then widened when she felt Middie draw her into a sisterly hug. Despite her doubts, Hilde accepted Middie's soothing words of comfort without question. After all, the two were like sisters the moment they met due to their similar pasts of allying with the enemy to save loved ones. Hilde and Middie understood each other, and they could already read each other's minds.  
  
Trowa's eyes followed every movement of Middie's body, nearly shocked at the kind heart she grew to possess. He knew so little of her, always just sticking to the belief that she was a selfish traitor to boot, and now he found his heart yearning to learn more about the elder versian of the girl he fell in love with long ago. A peculiar fire surged through his body just then, and he fought to keep his body at bay.  
  
Meanwhile, a frantic Duo Maxwell bolted into the pilot cabin of the shuttle carelessly, surprising both pilots nearly out of their seats. "Mr. Maxwell, sir, we are currently attempting to enter the earth's atmosphere. If you don't want to be thrown into the wall a couple of times, I suggest you take your seat and buckle up!" The co-pilot pointed toward the exit with emphasis.  
  
"We have no time for that right now. Haven't you seen the news lately? We need to get to the earth now!" Duo seethed obnoxiously as he steadied himself from being knocked around the cockpit.  
  
"No, I haven't seen the news lately seeing how I've been couped up to this forsaken cockpit for the past twelve hours, thank you very much. And with all due respect, we are going as fast as we can to get you to said earth, and it would go much faster if you would stop being an annoyance."  
  
"Can't this piece of junk fly any faster!" Duo glanced toward the spedometer and fuel gauges suspiciously.  
  
The pilot, obviously irritated, clenched his teeth to avoid an employee-customer conflict, especially with a customer with the upper hand. "Unless you want to land in an oversized ash heap...NO!"  
  
"Bring on the ash heap!" Duo retaliated as the shuttle rocked side to side nearly causing Duo to lose his footing for the second time.  
  
"Matthews, remove Mr. Maxwell and secure him to a seat please before he hurts himself. There is far too much turbulance to increase acceleration." The pilot commanded while preparing the shuttle for re- entry.  
  
Four startled pair of eyes shot up instantly to find the co-pilot dragging a struggling Duo back into the main cabin room. "Let go of me! I don't understand why Trowa insisted I not fly this thing in the first place. I am a far more advanced pilot than the both of you put together!" Hilde nearly fell out of her chair from utter embarrassment as the co-pilot locked the cabin doors behind him.  
  
Shaking his head, Trowa merely watched an angered Hilde Schbieker drag the overly active Duo to his seat and then proceed to sit on him to further restrain him. "Because if you were piloting, we would have made it to the earth in a huge ash heap, perfectly useless." Trowa calming buckled his seat belt and ordered the girls to do the same before raising his magazine to eye level once more.  
  
"What the hell is with the 'ash-heap' analogy! If we were going too fast, the elctric wires would melt down and cause us to explode into a million scattered pieces that would burn up before they reached the surface. And! I would not cause us to explode or land in an 'ash-heap'!" A violent wave of turbulence rocked the shuttle causing Hilde and Duo to stumble out of the chair and roll aimlessly onto the floor in a heap.  
  
Trowa merely smirked at the scene as he lowered the magazine in his hands. "Clearly, you have convinced all of us."  
  
A slender arm curled gracefully over resting cobalt blue eyes as a woman laid peacefully in a cabin bed of a spacecraft. Dreary and exhausted, the dark-blue haired woman shifted uncomfortably on thin sheets that served no hint of warmth. Suddenly, blue orbs fluttered open when her entire body was roughly jerked off the bed, obviously due to an unexpected increase in velocity. "Ow! Dammit, that hurt!" Thin, elegant fingers massaged the ache on the her head in tiny circles as she grudgingly struggled to stand up, only to find more bumps and bruises in the process.  
  
Shakily, she stalked out of the darkened room and headed straight for the pilot cockpit to find a long cascade of platinum blonde hair trailing down the pilot's chair. "Don't you know it's bad luck to awaken a restless woman and knock her straight out of bed!" Lucretzia Noin grumbled un- ladylike as she collapsed clumsily into the copilot's chair.  
  
Zeches Marquise remained silent with fury-infested, ice-blue eyes. He merely turned the video-cam roughly toward Noin, which detailed the events surrounding the attack on ESUN Central and the critical condition of Vice Foriegn Minister Darlian. "Yuy warned me that something like this would happen. That's why he was so direct on us getting back to the Earth before something did. Now... I am too late, again!" A fist slammed down into a control panel like lightening, causing a few sparks to fly.  
  
Noin gasped as she listened intently to the investigation findings on one of the closest friends she ever had, not to mention a possible sister- in-law. Glimpses of the past flooded Noin's memories of the times when she first brought Relena into the political arena and protected her when the Sanq Kingdom was anahilated the second time. Relena's tender, dreamful face encompassed her mind along with acoompanied worry tearing through her heart. "Oh... Zeches."  
  
Zeches closed his eyes to ease his frustration, but nothing could shed his worry and guilt. "I left her once again, and once again, I am not there for her when she needs me the most. I am always running away from her, from my past. Why? For what end? Why can I hide behind a mask and face my enemies head on, but I can't ever seem to face her."  
  
Noin's eyes softened, and she longed to comfort the only man she ever cared for, the only man she could ever love. "Zeches," she hesitated to find the right words to ease his mind. "Relena loves you, and she understands the reasons for your actions. She is a Peacecraft after all. And... Heero's there for her as well." It was the wrong thing to say, and she knew it the instant she said it.  
  
Zeches' mood darkened at the thought, despite the fact that he knew Noin was just trying to comfort him. He didn't say anything to respond to her, but merely allowed the tension in the cockpit to grow more eerie. It wasn't that he hated Heero for his closeness toward Relena, nor did he believe that Heero was undeserving of her. If anything, Zeches was just jealous and angry with himself for not attempting to have a similar type of relationship with his only sister. The thought unnerved him terribly, especially when he realized that Heero knew more about his sister, even by accident, than he did.  
  
"You know Zeches, you can't stop the way they feel about each other, well, if Heero cares for her that way anyway." Noin tried to break the silence, but the topic at hand wasn't the best medicine to do the job. Much to Noin's surprise, however, she caught an amused look from Zeches toward her input.  
  
"You're right."  
  
If Noin wasn't shocked before, she certainly was now! 'That's it? No angry bursts! No arguing! No disdain toward Heero!' Was Noin simply dreaming or did she just hear her lover approve of the relationship, er possible relationship, between his all-time arch-rival and his beloved baby sister.  
  
"Yuy may not know it or even show it, but he definitely cares for her, maybe more than I once liked, but I realized, it was a good thing. Yuy and I have an unusual understandment of each other and of Relena. It's almost as if we can read each other's minds or moves. I suppose that comes from experience of fighting a single adversary for so long, but either way, I can read it from his eyes as clear as day. He didn't kill me when he had the chance to... because it would make Relena sad. Besides, he sees Relena for who she is unlike any other man who fancies her, who just sees beauty, money, and power. Actually, somehow, the whole ordeal just seems right."  
  
With wide eyes, Noin didn't say a thing. She just fell over.  
  
"Noin?"  
  
Depths of darkness crept from somewhere unspoken to surround her frail body, chilling her with a bitter coldness. It flowed freely, filling every fiber in her being, numbing the boundaries of her mind, making it had for her to fight off the foreign presence. What was wrong with her? She couldn't grasp anything in this shroud of darkness that overwhelmed her. 'Heero!'  
  
Relena extended her hand aimlessly into the depth in an attempt to reach something, to reach him, but she couldn't find him. Wasn't he just here, holding her? Her fine features hardened in frustration as drops of perspiration eased gently down her forehead. Why couldn't she reach him?  
  
Soft, subtle moans escaped Relena's chapped lips, alarming Sally Po from deep thought. She knocked her clipboard, allowing the pencil sitting on top to fly into the air as Sally stumbled out of her chair to rush to the struggling, sleeping girl on the hospital bed. She grasped a towel and dropped it into a saucer of freezing water to dampen it. When she was satisfied, she squeezed the unnecessary droplets and pressed it lightly on Relena's forehead to lower her fever. Sally's eyes softened in worry when she watched Relena's frail form shiver from underneath the icy touch.  
  
It was so strange...so strange. Sally had never seen anything like this before. In all her medical experience, not a single patient experienced such an abnormal combination of symptoms like this before. Whatever she suddenly came down with in such a short period of time acted like both a bacterial and viral disease.  
  
After a few moments of pure silence, Sally suddenly smirked genuinely as she closed her eyes to hide her announcement. "You're getting rusty, allowing one to hear you so easily like that." She straightened her back while removing the damp towel from a now calmer Relena. "You might as well step into the light." She opened her eyes and placed her hands on her waist in an apparent challenge.  
  
A grunt suddenly sounded throughout the room as Heero stepped away from his darkened corner, surprisingly, with an arched eyebrow. "You heard me?"  
  
Her smile broadened. "Either you're getting rusty, or I am spending way too much time around Wufei. The silence that encompasses around us on every op. must be causing me to gain super man hearing. Before you know it, I'll be powered with kryptonite."  
  
Heero flatly ignored Sally's ill attempt at a sense of humor. Instead, his concentration settled on something more appealing; a very pale, ghost like Relena. His stomach churned in an awkward shape when he gazed at her, memorizing every feature, every loose strand of hair, every curve. He had failed her terribly, and now some kind of pathogen or poison was mixing itself with her pure blood. He couldn't, wouldn't let her die before him now. Not like this. He made a silent vow to hunt down that bastard, Jackson, and slaughter him with in an inch of his life.  
  
He listened intently to Sally's exit as the door closed behind her, leaving him to linger with Relena alone. His heart rate quickened as a lump caught slowly in his throat. His eyes illuminated over Relena's body, slowly watching her chest rise up and down consistently as he neared the rather uncomfortable-looking hospital bed. One rough hand instinctively found its way to clamp around Relena's frail, thin hand, which radiated very little warmth.  
  
He was lost. He intertwined his fingers between hers, massaging the flesh before he brought her fingers to his lips to taste her. "Re-Relena...damn, you're beautiful." What was he saying? That really came from nowhere. Heero knew t came from somewhere, somewhere deep inside of him. All he wanted to do was surrender to it, surrender to her. "Relena, listen to me. You've got to wake up. I told you before...you're too strong for this, stronger than me." Heero felt a strange sting in his eyes as a single drop of wetness fell upon the hand that held hers.  
  
"Dammit, Relena, you can't give up. You have to fight this, you have to-." A muffled choke sounded in the room as Heero tried to command his body to breathe. "Relena...please...don't run away from me...don't go where I can't protect you...come back to me, my love."  
  
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A/N: I am finally done with this chapter!!!! Yeah!!! Took me long enough: two months or more...good grief. Anyway, on to some news...I have decided that in order to know if my fanfics are losing interest or not, I will only continue a new chapter to each fic if I recieve at least 4-6 reviews per chapter. This is only because I have many more ideas, but I can't start writing them until I finish one of these stories first. Therefore, I will just follow this guideline for now on.  
  
By the way, I want you fans to decide which fanfic idea I should start on next. So, on the next chapter I post, I will have a list of my ideas and a short synopsis. I will let this little survey of mine continue until I finish one of these fics. I'll provide more info later...I need to get back to writing the next chapters for both Too Lost to be Saved and Blinded Depths!  
  
Byz Wolfcry17 


	11. Stuck

Too Lost to be Saved

by: Wolfcry17

disclaimer: I do not own gundam wing.

AN: Well, it's been more than half a year... all I can say is I am sorry, and I hope I will get better at this writing thing. Thanks to all those who have been so kind to review this story and to stimulate me to continue this story. Thank you all so much!!!!! I hope this will be enough to suffice until I get to finishing this story up. I haven't decided yet, if I will finish this up within the next few chapters or lengthen it more, cause I have two alternate endings in my head right now that I am shuffling with. But, anyway, please enjoy!!!

* * *

* * *

Chapter 10 Stuck

earth...

Constant beeping filled irritated ears as a shaky hand rubbed groggy eyelids to wash away the sleep. Cerulean orbs fluttered to life as Relena tried weakly to sit up to register where she was, but something heavy held her in her place. 'Huh? What the–'

She looked down to find a messy mass of brown locks resting in the crook of her neck. 'He-Heero?' He was here... with her. His entire body was straddled beside hers on the extremely small hospital bed. With some of his weight shifted on her entire left side with his arm protectively placed over her as a shield. Relena's eyes softened from the sudden shock as she watched Heero peacefully sleep against her with his chest slowly rising and receding against her as the warm air of his breath tickled her skin.

That's when everything hit her: the conference, the missing doctors and shiploads of pathogens, gas, and what not, the public speech, Carl Jackson and... Heero. It all came to her in a chain of flashes that suddenly caused a sharp pain to shoot through her head. Relena could feel the foreign substance Carl forcefully injected into her body course through her veins. She felt so weak, and she would feel cold as well if not for the intense body heat radiating from Heero.

She glanced down to the sleeping man before her who looked nothing more than an innocent child. Heero had saved her, he had saved her life once again. She suddenly felt a surge of strength enter her body at the thought, and somehow, she knew that whatever was coursing through veins, Heero would find a remedy for it. No matter what.

Relena pulled her left hand out from underneath Heero's weight and hesitantly stroked her fingers through Heero's surprisingly smooth, soft hair. The simple movement seemed to sooth Heero as he subconsciously dug his body further against hers, which brought a sudden blush to Relena's pale cheeks. Nothing mattered as long as he was here. She wasn't frightened of anything, no matter what the future held for her.

* * *

An overly-large yellow limo halted to a sudden stop in front of the ESUN Central Airport facility with a fazed, very shock-eyed Quatre slowly crawling out of the passenger side. With his hair standing on end, he slowly tried to control his heart rate as Dorothy rounded the vehicle. "Y-you drive... like a... like a maniac! Did you ever learn the rules of the road or did you even know about them?" Quatre thoughtlessly bursted out as he tried to catch up to Dorothy's fast pace. She was obviously obsessive about not wasting any time!

But when Quatre stole a side-glance toward the deadly blonde, expecting a snide response to his own snide remark, he saw a sense of loss flicker through her eyes. She was overwhelmingly worried about Relena's condition, especially since she blamed herself for what happened. After all, she was the one who found Carl's malicious plans and clumsily got caught for it.

But, if she had never found those viles and documents to begin with, then neither he nor Heero would have found anything. And Relena would be beyond help, if not worse, by now.

Quatre gently shook himself out of his thoughts when he realized that he had lost sight of Dorothy. He rushed up the escalator, jumping up the steps as id he wasn't already moving. He found her standing outside on the airport balcony near the shuttle gate Zeches and Noin would be arriving at. He slowed his pace in relief and leaned against the doorway when he noticed how beautiful she looked with the wind brushing her hair in the air. He couldn't help feeling horrible that he found her so beautiful when she was apprehensive.

Dorothy frantically searched the skies for the shuttle that carried Relena's family. They needed to save her. She couldn't die, not now. They all needed Relena to keep living. It was all her fault after all.

She was suddenly bolted out of her thoughts when she felt warm, gentle arms snake around her waist. She gasped quietly as Quatre pulled her slowly away from the railing into his chest, and she felt his warmth consume her. For a moment, she couldn't believe it. She couldn't believe he cared so much for her even after all she did, who she was. But he had made her better. He had changed her... somehow. And more than anything, she didn't want to lose what she had with Quatre.

She trembled slightly when Quatre leaned his head into her shoulder to whisper in her ear. "What's wrong, Dorothy?"

Dorothy closed her eyes to allow her mind to erase everything, but the feeling of Quatre's body against hers. She hated feeling vulnerable, helpless, especially around Quatre, but ironically, it was he who made her feel that way. "I'm so scared, Quatre. I was always able to hide my fear before... by fighting. But I.... I don't want to be like that again... ever. And I am afraid it something happens–"

Quatre abruptly turned Dorothy within his arms to force her to look at him. He brushed away her tears with one hand and then tucked a few strands of hair behind her ear. "Nothing is going to happen Dorothy. We are going to stop this and save Miss Relena before anything can happen. I know you are strong... you're the kindest, strongest person I know. And I know you can take care of yourself, but Dorothy, please, let me protect you... let me take care of you."

"Quatre–" She was silenced immediately as Quatre's lips brushed against her own in a most tender way. She felt weakened, vulnerable, but somehow, it was all the better. He made her stronger. He released from her reluctantly before pulling her to him in a tight, unrelenting embrace.

"Trust me, Dorothy. I know it's difficult for you... it's difficult for me too, but I trust you." He held her, too afraid to let her go and lose her. Dorothy was so elusive, so hard to capture. Her kindred spirit was so wild. And not that he found enough courage to capture her, he just couldn't risk losing her now. "Please, Dorothy!"

She could hear the pleading in his voice. He sounded so desperate, she just couldn't refuse him. "I trust you, Quatre." She pulled away from him to look into his emerald orbs. She hesitantly brought her hand up to his face to brush away his blonde locks. "You're the only person I trust."

Suddenly, a shuttle skidded to a stop in the middle of he runaway, alerting both Quatre and Dorothy. They both looked at each other in complete shock. "That shuttle is not a shuttle from Mars."

"Well, maybe it's–"

"No, this is a preventer base, and no other flights were scheduled at this time." Quatre glanced over to Dorothy once again.

* * *

A pair of metal doors automatically opened with the presence of a human form near it. On the other side a large screen was revealed behind a large, lone desk.

"Hello, my son," the superior voice resonated from the large chair behind the sleek mahogany desk. "I assume your mission was successful because I don't want to be anymore stressed than I already am."

A smirk was etched on Carl Jackson's face as he stepped toward his father before dropping carelessly on a nearby chair. "Sleep well, father. The dove of peace is now fighting a personal war for her life."

A sadistic grin spread itself on Mr. Jefferson's face as he took a whiff of his Columbian cigar. "Excellent." A wave of smoke released from his mouth. "So our little Vice Foreign Minister has exactly one week left before a cure can't save her and two weeks until our little virus takes her life. And only we hold the cure."

Befuddled, Carl Jackson straightened up from his rather slouched position. "What about Une's daughter who escaped? I thought that Dr. Une downloaded a microchip of all or most of our data, which disappeared with Middie Une."

"True enough, but the data that was found downloaded was inaccurate and not up to date. Une's only daughter is carrying enough information to inform those close to Miss Darlian as to what is flowing through her veins, but not a sufficient enough cure to save her. And within one week, Miss Darlian will be too lost to be saved."

* * *

Sally wiped a few drops of sweat from her brow before continuing to look through a microscope at a sample of Relena's blood and bodily tissues. Nothing... she had seen nothing like this before. It appeared to be everything she could ever of feared and more. It just was not probable. Her analysis supported nothing but a man-made disease that acted as both a viral and bacterial infection which attacks white blood cells first to damage her immune system. Then, it would take on a more bacterial appearance to attack each vital organ when the immune system was close to shattering. "It's just not probable." Sally wanted to bang her head against the counter.

"What's wrong? Have you found anything?"

Sally jumped up away from the microscope at the sound of a Chinese voice. "Wufei! I... I don't know."

Wufei walked over to her with a bewildered look. "How can you not know. You either know or you don't."

Sally sighed, wanting nothing more than to ease her mind with a good massage. "Not everything is that black and white, Wufei, especially in science. I wish it were, but it's just not."

Wufei merely nodded before finding a chair to sit down. "Explain."

Sally looked at him for a second, as if pondering something. "Okay, basic 411. Any disease falls into either of two categories. Looking at the samples of Relena's blood and tissue, the only diagnosis I can give is one that is improbable. Relena has an internal infection that acts both viral and bacterial. However, it does appear to be man-made, so this diagnosis is not entirely impossible. And if this diagnosis is correct, Relena doesn't have much time."

"So basically, we have to find a cure to a disease that acts like no other in a very limited time."

"I'm afraid it's not that easy."

"I was unaware I was making it sound easy," Wufei smirked in the light of things.

Sally resisted the urge to laugh. It just wasn't the time. "Even if I can somehow develop a cure, it wouldn't completely cure her. I said that my diagnosis supported both a viral and bacterial appearance. The problem is while a bacterial infection can be cured, a viral infection can not. Only viral symptoms can be eliminated and the virus controlled, which means that even if I can find a cure for the bacterial portion, her entire immune system will be forever weakened." Sally slumped over feeling dreadfully defeated. "At this point, no matter what we do, if Relena survives, she would be susceptible to anything, even something as simple as a common cold. I... I don't know if we can save her."

Sally shook her head to fight off the tears that brimmed at her eyelids. Her eyes fluttered open with she felt a reassuring hand rub her shoulders. She found Wufei's dark, mysterious eyes, which flickered with something new and strange that Sally had never seen before.

"You're strong Sally... I know you can do it." He smiled lightly, but it was definitely there, and it was definitely enough to confort Sally.

"Maybe I can help."

Sally and Wufei shot their gazes toward the strange foreign voice to find a strange blonde woman grasping a silver necklace standing in front of Quatre, Dorothy, Duo, Hilde, Trowa, Catherine, and even Zeches and Noin.

* * *

Heero sat idly rubbing Relena hand as she slept peacefully. She hadn't wakened up yet, at least not to his knowledge, and he was becoming more restless by the second. He knew she was strong, that she was fighting this, but he just couldn't shake the feeling that he was losing her. He wasn't ready to give her up. It didn't matter how many times she told him that he had saved her life, because nothing he did could measure up to how much she had saved his life. She gave him more than a reason to live; she gave him a desire to live. And now he feared that he would never have the chance to tell her.

"Relena, I am so sorry," he squeezed his eyes shut to hide his tears as he brought her hand up to rest his forehead against. "I promise you Relena that I will save you. I don't know how, but I promise I will find a way. I promise, I promise, I promise..."

"I know... I believe in you..."

Heero jerked up his head to meet ocean beautiful pools, slightly faded, but still as radiant as ever. "Relena."

"Hello Heero," Relena choked out with an attempt to clear her throat. She coughed slightly before looking deep into Heero's Prussian gaze. Her ivory hand found his face as if she was trying to confirm something, something valuable. "You're real."

Heero frowned. It seemed more like a question than a statement, which utterly confused him. "Of course I'm real."

Relena nodded sheepishly, feeling like she had just said something stupid. "It's just that I... I... um... it's just been so long since I last saw you. I was afraid I would never see you again. I am sorry."

"Relena, I promised that I would protect you, always."

Relena arched her brow, a goofy grin gracing her angelic face. "I also remember another promise you made to me. How did it go again? Oh yes, omae o korosu."

A smirk found its way to Heero's face before he started laughing, absolutely startling Relena in the process.

"He'd laughing. I must be dreaming!"

Some more laughing. "Relena, I never broke that promise... just altered it a little." Heero admitted, his eyes flickering with something close to enjoyment.

Relena sarcastically rolled her eyes while bursting into her own fit of giggles. "A little! You did a complete 180! And since when can you alter a mission, Mr. Heero Yuy, gundam pilot of Wing Zero, Mr. Perfect Soldier?"

Heero smirked some more, especially when he saw Relena laugh again, her voice as melodious as any song. It soothed his entire mind and soul, and he knew it was his favorite sound. "Well, Ms. Relena Darlian, Ms. Dove of Peace, I remember assigning myself that very mission, so I can do with it as I like."

Relena snorted in amusement. "How romantic!" Sarcasm filled her tongue. "Degraded from a being to a thing. How much I love you!" Of course, it was all a joke, which Heero amazingly caught, despite his deathly glare. Relena only laughed some more at his pathetic attempt to intimidate her. A few seconds later, she calmed herself to a deathly grave disposition. "Heero," her eyes searched his deeply for an answer that she wasn't sure he could give her. "What's wrong with me? What's going to happen?"

The flicker of joy was erased from his eyes in an instant as he watched her eyes beg him for an answer, an answer he didn't have just yet. His hand covered hers hesitantly in an attempt to comfort her. "I don't know, Relena. I just don't know, but I mean what I said before. I will find out, and I will save you."

Relena knew what he would say, but somehow hearing it directly from him made all the difference. She felt more secure than ever, and suddenly, daringly leapt forward to capture Heero's lips, utterly shocking Heero. It wasn't the first time their lips met... in fact, he was the first to kiss her before, but that still didn't change how shocked he was now. Especially when he forgot how good their first kiss was, how gentle, but strong she felt against him. That memory suddenly gave him the energy to bring her closer to him. He wrapped his arms around her slim body as he deepened the kiss hesitantly, but desperately.

Suddenly, the door opened in a rush, revealing Zeches Marquise on the other side. The sight that greeted him was his baby sister in the arms of his former enemy.

Heero and Relena broke apart from the sudden surprise to find a very shocked older brother, not angry, just shocked. "Brother!?!"

* * *

"So if Une's daughter worries you little, where are agents Collins, Daniels, and Allecks?" Carl Jackson questioned.

Mr. Jefferson sneered venomously at the names mentioned, especially one in particular. "Hmm... Allecks is dead. I hate more than anything incompetency. Collins and Daniels are on a mission to prove themselves to me."

* * *

* * *

AN: Well, I have a ton of contemplating to do between those two alternate endings, so hopefully I will get some more chapters out in the next two months... hopefully!! Thanks again to all my readers, but especially my reviewers. THANKS BUNCHES GUYS I LUV YA!!! 


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